Queen of Lost Stars (Dragonblade Series/House of St. Hever) (23 page)

Smoke and death were everywhere as the small group scurried across the ward and into the depths of the gatehouse. Kaspian took them down the narrow stairs, so recently the sight of Madelayne’s folly with the Welsh spy, and into the sublevel that held the two locked cells and a hole in the floor for the pit dungeon. With a huge iron key, Kaspian unlocked one of the cells.

“Get in, quickly.”

The women didn’t hesitate, except for Madelayne. Her eyes went between the dark, frightening cell and Kaspian.

“You would put us in…
that
?” she demanded.

He took her by the arm and gently tried to pull her in. “It’s perfectly safe. The rebels cannot get in without a key, which you will have. Unless you give it to them, they won’t be able to reach you.”

“But you are locking us up!”

“I’m locking you
in
.”

She wasn’t convinced. “But what if they occupy the castle? They can keep us here and starve us! We cannot escape!”

“Madelayne, I do not have time for this. Please get in.” He gave her a quick shove and she stumbled into the cell. Slamming the heavy iron grate, he locked it with the ungainly key. Madelayne was standing against the bars, panic on her face, and he leaned forward and kissed her tenderly. “Do not worry, dearest. Everything will be fine.”

He deposited the key in her hand. She looked at it as if it confused her somehow. Kaspian turned on his heels and marched for the stairs, sending a surge of terror through her. It wasn’t so much he was leaving her alone in this terrible place; it was the fact that he was going to where men were dying.

“
Kaspian!
” she cried.

He paused at the base of the stairs, the impression of her frightened face forever etched in his memory. But he had a battle to direct topside and he could not afford to be distracted any longer than necessary. Madelayne was safe and he was content. He mounted the stairs without another word.

It was cold and dark in the vault. They had one torch between them, and when that was gone, they would be pitched into blackness. The women looked at each other, fearfully, until Mavia finally took charge. Madelayne still hung against the bars where Kaspian had left her and it was apparent that she was in no position to take the lead.

“We’ve enough dry straw here to make a decent bed,” she said crisply. “Let’s pile it against this back wall, well away from the door. We’ve nothing to do now but sleep and wait this out.”

The women eyed Madelayne as they worked. She hadn’t moved. When the straw was piled and the washer woman and the other female servant were seated on it in a huddle, Mavia went to her.

“Why do not you sit down and rest?” she said gently. “You’ve been on your feet since yesterday.”

Madelayne shook her head. “I cannot rest,” she whispered. “Not when the castle is being overrun and Kaspian is in the midst of it. Not when he could be….”

Mavia quieted her. “You’ll not think like that. He and Thomas have been fighting battles for many years together. They’ll survive.”

Madelayne turned to the woman. “You’ve not seen Thomas since yesterday. He didn’t even come down here to say farewell when Kaspian locked us up. Why not?”

Mavia’s brave smile vanished and she lowered her gaze. “He’s not speaking to me.”

“Why not?”

“Because… well, suffice it to say that he is not.”

“Because of Nicholas?”

A look of extreme guilt crossed Mavia’s face. “It would seem so.”

Madelayne’s attention was momentarily diverted from Kaspian and their predicament. “Mavia, you haven’t…?”

She wouldn’t answer directly. “Thomas has been so cold to me for most of our marriage,” she said. “Now, suddenly, he is wildly jealous. Sometimes I feel as if I cannot breathe the way he clings and spies.”

Madelayne was quiet a moment, trying to think of something tactful to say. “You
have
paid quite a bit of attention to Nicholas.”

“It is my duty.”

“It is my duty as well but Kaspian bade me stay away from him.”

Mavia grew flustered. “Therefore, I must make up for the attention you have denied him. He is our guest, after all.”

Madelayne could see that she was defensive and decided to let the subject drop. Moreover, the servants in the corner had big ears. Her attention inevitably turned back to Kaspian and the battle above.

Leaning against the bars, as if that somehow would bring her closer to Kaspian, the sounds of shouting and scuffling could be heard up above. The noise grew louder and the women in the cell grew increasingly fearful. Suddenly, great bangs could be heard and the women started, one of them beginning to cry. Though terrified, Madelayne tried hard to be brave.

“Kaspian won’t let anything happen to us,” she said confidently. “He’s the greatest warrior on the border. He’ll chase off those Welsh in no time at all.”

Before anyone could reply, a great clamor was heard at the top of the stairs. Bodies were suddenly racing down the steps, whooping and yelling, looking for anything to burn or steal or destroy. Madelayne fell back, away from the bars, as the women in the cell cowered in terror. It took little time for the Welsh rebels to the see the women behind bars.

They slowed in their chaos, men who were apparently peasants with some form of weaponry. They were dirty and coarse, and they eyed the women with something of surprise and a good amount of glee. The first man walked up and rattled the locked door, thwarted to find it secured. A second man came to help him and then a third. Finally, all five of them were rattling the bars as if to pull the gate from the stone itself. Mavia screamed in terror and closed her eyes, but Madelayne watched them closely. The stone mortar that held the iron didn’t look close to breaking, but she did not want to take the chance. Empowered with the need for self-preservation, she grabbed the torch from one of the other women and thrust it at the men’s hands.

“Get back!” she hissed. “Go away or I’ll burn your hands off!”

She had already burned a couple of them seriously enough so that they quit the vault in search of more easily obtained booty. But three of the men stayed behind, leering at her, smirking. “Why would ye do that, luv?” the first man asked. “We’re only tryin’ tae free ye. Why would ye hurt us?”

“We do not want to be freed,” Madelayne snapped. “Go away this instant!”

The first man meandered near the bars, his eyes drifting over Madelayne in the most seductive way. It was apparent that he was thinking of all the wicked things he could do to her. “What’s yer name, luv?”

“My name is for those I choose to associate with. Not for the likes of you.”

The men laughed at her. The first man moved closer to the bars. “Spitfire lass. Do not ye want tae come out o’there?”

Her answer was to thrust the torch at him again and light his beard ablaze. The man yelped and, with help from his companions, put the fire out. His happy demeanor had vanished with the whiskers on the left side of his face.

“Stupid wench,” he snarled. “What’d ye do that for?”

Madelayne would not back down. The iron bars between them fed her courage. “I told you to go away,” she hissed. “I meant it. Come any closer and I’ll burn you again.”

The man leapt at the bars, rattling them terribly. Mavia screamed, as did the other women, but Madelayne merely thrust the torch at him again as promised. But in their deadly game of thrust and parry, she came too close and he reached between the bars and grabbed the torch, unable to pull it through but able to knock it out of her hands. Pulled forward by the momentum, Madelayne fell against the bars and the man grabbed her around the neck.

“Now, wench,” he spat in her ear, “ye’ll pay for the blow ye dealt me!”

It was apparent he meant to snap her neck. Madelayne struggled and fought, but he was too strong and had the advantage through the bars. He hit her repeatedly in the head, trying to subdue her, and her pretty face was turning shades of red. It was apparent she couldn’t last much longer. Mavia, seized with panic, picked up the torch from where it had rolled against the wall and shoved it into the man’s face, lighting the rest of his beard afire and part of his hair. Screaming, the man fell back and dropped Madelayne. Mavia dragged her unconscious form well away from the bars as the man, once again, put out the fire on his face.

“Bitches!” he screamed. “Ye’ll all die now, do ye hear?
Ye’ll die!”

Unable to claim the women as spoils of war, the men were now determined to destroy them. They had ceased to be viewed as chattel and were now the enemy. The man and his two remaining companions collected whatever they could find in the vault that was flammable, which wasn’t much; a couple of stools and some old, urine-soaked hay. Putting it into a pile near the cell, they lit it afire. Slowly, an orange flame appeared and puffs of smoke began to pour out. Mavia and the other women watched the growing blaze with terror.

The rebels left the vault without another word. The fire continued to grow and the ladies knew that the flame wouldn’t kill them, but the smoke would. Panicked, Mavia struggled to revive Madelayne. When that didn’t work, she went searching her gown for the key to the cell and was stricken to realize that it was nowhere on her person. As the smoke in the vault increased, she and the serving women fell to their hands and knees, searching for the key that they knew Madelayne had possessed. Suddenly, one of the servants cried out and pointed to the floor just outside the cell. There, almost hidden beneath the burning straw and stools, glittered the old iron key.

“My God,” Mavia gasped as she stared at the key. “It must have fallen off her during the struggle. I cannot believe those ruffians didn’t see or hear it. Can anyone reach it?”

The three women strained to grasp the key, obviously several inches from their reach, but none would admit it. The smoke was now reaching annoying proportions and they began coughing, trying to devise ways to pull the key to them. Mavia removed an iron hairpin and tied it to a strip of cloth she tore from her dress, hoping to hook the key. But the pin had no effect against the iron. They grabbed thick pieces of straw, hoping to budge it. All they succeeded in doing was pushing it further away.

The straw and wood was smoking heavily now. The women had to lay on the ground, under the smoke, but the black air was filling their lungs, threatening to choke them. Mavia tried again to rouse Madelayne, but she was out cold. Her forehead was turning shades of purple where the man had hit her and Mavia reasoned that if she had to die, then at least she was unconscious and there would be no pain about it. The other two women were already incapacitated by the smoke, but Mavia would not give up. Looping the strip of cloth that had once held the hairpin, she struggled to catch the loop around the end of the key and pull it toward her.

Time was running out.

*

Kaspian couldn’t remember
seeing such rain. It literally poured down in sheets, making it difficult to see just a few feet in front of him. There were Welsh everywhere, looting the interior of the keep, killing his men, and generally wreaking havoc. His thoughts began to turn toward abandoning Lavister, simply to regroup and reclaim; he hadn’t enough men to fight off the onslaught and he knew it. He needed the rest of his army back if he was going to do anything of measure. At the moment, it was a losing battle.

His thoughts turned to the women in the cell down below and his need to free them upon relinquishing the castle. Fighting off one man who suddenly jumped out at him from the mist, he strained his torso badly with the final deadly swing of his broadsword and he had to make a conscious effort not to hold his side, as had become something of a habit.

Stomping through the mud on his way to the gatehouse, he swung his sword at anything that came close to him, including a couple of his own men that he barely missed. Thomas was nowhere to be found and he seriously wondered for the man’s health, but he could not be concerned about that at the moment. His greater concern was to free the women and take them to safety. Confiscating several Lavister soldiers to aid him, and sending yet others to spread the word that they were abandoning the fortress, he was within a mere few feet of the gatehouse before he saw it; dark smoke billowing from the opening.

Kaspian stared at it a moment as if he could not believe his eyes. Then, with a surge of terror, he thundered through the opening, choking on the black smoke, calling Madelayne’s name in a tone that bordered on panic. The smoke was so thick he could hardly see and at the bottom of the stairs, he and the soldiers that had followed him fell to their hands and knees, crawling through the blackness towards the cells. It brought great relief to him to hear coughing and he could see the supine outline of several figures in the distant chamber. Mavia’s panicked face greeted him through the gloom.

“My lord!” she cried. “The key is in the fire!”

Kaspian rounded the burning mound, searching desperately in the area Mavia was pointing. Locating the key, he picked it up with his mailed glove, feeling the heat burn through the mail and leather. His eyes watering to the point of blindness, he fumbled with the lock until the door swung open. While the soldiers helped the servants out, Kaspian fell to his knees beside Madelayne’s limp form.