The Illuminator (69 page)

For the briefest moment Kathryn entertained the notion of trying to draw him to her side. Bargain for his help against the rebels. But she could see the hard edge of hatred in his mocking smile. She would gain no champion here.

He set the bucket down, and grabbing Agnes by the arm, drew her dangerously close to the torch.

“I'm afraid you'll be needing a new cook before long, milady. This one is about to meet with an accident just inside your door. Killed by her own kind. Peasant rabble.” He gave a mock bow. “But I'm still at your service.”

He waved the flaming torch perilously close to Agnes's head, singeing some errant hairs that had escaped her cap. Agnes cried out in terror and slapped at the cap. Simpson laughed, tightening his grip on her. The smell of the burnt hair hovered with the smell of the burning fields.

Kathryn felt the old woman's terror like a pain in her stomach. Felt her fear of the flames, knew she saw only her husband's burnt body and hers beside it. She read, too, the mad intent in the overseer's eyes. He was just crazy enough to carry out his threat.

“Let her go, Simpson.”

“Let her go, Simpson”
he mimicked in a falsetto voice. “Or you'll do what?”

Kathryn struggled to keep her voice even. Not stern, but not afraid.

“Let her go and we'll talk about your returning to Blackingham.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Return to what? A blackened heap of charred rubble?” But he lessened his grip on the cook.

“We can bargain, you and I. You help me save Blackingham from the rebels, and perhaps we can come to some permanent arrangement regarding your place at Blackingham. As you can see, it is difficult for a woman alone.”

His eyes narrowed to slits. She could almost read the cunning behind them. He released the cook, but did not step away from the door. He still held the torch in his hand.

“Leave us, Agnes,” Kathryn said. “Simpson and I have some terms of agreement to settle. Go to Saint Faith Priory until the trouble passes. I'll send Master Colin for you when it's over.”

Agnes looked at her as though she were daft.

“But, milady—”

“Do as you are told, Agnes.” Her voice, harsh now, demanding.

“Aye, milady.” A small voice, unsteady. She edged between Simpson and the door. Squeezed through.

“Saint Faith Priory,” Kathryn called after her sternly. She listened for the cook's footsteps on the stairs, heavy, plodding at first, then running.

When she could hear no more, she turned to the steward.

“How dare you enter my chamber! You are a thief and a liar. Get out before I order you the whipping that you should have gotten last harvest.”

He stepped inside and shut the door behind him. Kathryn backed up, trying to keep a space between them.

“Tsk tsk, such harsh words! What about the bargain we just made, milady?” He feigned surprise, then his stare turned icy. “You think me an absolute fool? I know the old woman has gone for help.”

The more Kathryn backed up, the more he pushed, until she was backed up against the bed. He held the bucket in one hand and the torch in the other.

“But I'll have satisfaction long before she can raise a cry.” He set the bucket at her feet. “You remember the tar that you wanted. I brought you some.”

The smell of smoke was stronger now, the house deadly quiet.

“Tar?” What was he blithering about? “What have you done with the others?” This time, it wasn't working. She couldn't bluff him as she had before. He sneered at her, staring her down. She could almost hear the hammering of her heart in the silence.

He waved the torch in her face, forcing her to draw back. “Others? There was only the old cook. It seems, milady, that you are abandoned. Nobody wants to be in service to an ill-tempered bitch. There are some
others,
but they're busy cleaning out your coffers. And smearing the old lord's room with pitch.” He leered at her, curling his lip around the next words. “The illuminator's room. All that turpentine gum and paint soaked into the floors and table. It'll spark like lightning in a hay wain.”

Please, Holy Virgin, let Magda have remembered.

Kathryn started toward the door. “Get out of my way!”

He pushed her back toward the bed. She fell heavily against it.

“The tide has turned, milady. I'm giving the orders now.” He leaned over and placed the lit torch in a wall sconce beside the bed. It teetered precariously, half in, half out. “I should have killed that old sow of a cook, sent her to join her drunken old shepherd, but the rebels will do it for me. She won't get far.”

“You would murder an old woman who never harmed a living soul?”

Agnes was the closest thing she'd ever had to a mother. Holy Mother of God, keep her safe. And Jasmine. Please, God, please, let Magda keep her wits about her.

Simpson glowered at her as he busied himself with a brush and the contents of the bucket. He was painting something onto the bed curtains and the bedposts. It smelled strong and was black like pitch.

“What are you doing?” She tried to keep the panic out of her voice. She had faced him down once before. She could do it again. “You know if you do harm to me or my household, you'll hang for murder. I have but to ring this bell and my sons will come.”

He threw back his head and laughed. The sound of it made her skin prickle. He was possessed by the devil.

“Muuurder.” He gave a mock shudder. “It's so easy. I've gotten away with it, let's see, at least twice before.”

“Twice?” Kathryn's mind was spinning as fast as her heart was pounding. She put her hands in her lap, gripping them tightly against her belly, pretending to listen. She felt the hard ridge of Finn's dagger. Yes. It was there. Beneath her overskirt. Hanging beside her rosary.

“I killed the priest.”

Suddenly, his words had her full attention.

“Why so shocked? Never would've thought Ole Simpson, with his ‘Yes, milady, no milady' would've had the gumption, eh? The priest overheard me selling the sheep, figured out, since you were always poor-mouthing, where some of your profits might be going. Milord scarcely paid attention. But you. You had to account for every bloody farthing. The bishop's priest said I owed a tithe of what I was stealing, or he'd have to turn me in.” He lowered his voice to a husky whisper. “I gave him his tithe upside his head.”

Fury gripped her. Fury at herself for being blind. For being so prideful that she thought she could intervene, twist matters around to save her sons. She should have trusted them. She should have trusted Finn. Yet there was that in her nature that only trusted herself. She repented that now. But it was too late. She thought of Finn's haunted eyes, the hard lines that framed his mouth whenever he said her name.

And it had all been this whoreson's doing.

She bit her lip until she tasted blood. She wanted to leap at him, spitting and biting, gouge out his eyes and tear his hair out by the roots. Her wrist
tightened against the dagger under her skirts, twitching with the restraint that reason counseled. She longed to cut off his manhood and stuff it down his throat. But she would never be able to get her skirts up and loose the dagger in time.
Not yet.
She read what was in his eyes, bartered for time. “You said, ‘twice,'” she said.

“You mean you haven't guessed? The wool house was my doing. The old shepherd knew I stole the wool pack. Threatened to tell you. Two pigeons with one stone. Made a nice bonfire. And then young Colin getting blamed. Well, that was just a bit of luck, a little something extra, you might say.”

He put down the brush and reached out to stroke her breast. She shrugged him off, jerking her shoulders. But he just laughed. “Smoke's getting thicker. But I've one more piece of unfinished business. I mean to claim that which you stole from me.”

“I? Stole from you?” She spat the words at him.

“Remember the little kitchen maid? The way I figure it, you're a good enough trade. A lay for a lay. A lady slut for a scullery slut.” He lunged at her, pinning her to the bed.

She turned her face away, lest he read the lie in her eyes. “My flux is on me. Do you want to remove my bloody linen. Or shall I?”

He grimaced and froze momentarily, but recovered quickly, fumbling at the opening of his braies. “Jesu! I'll have what you owe me. I'm waist-steeped in blood already. Spread your legs,
milady.”

He was panting and his skin mottled, his features distorted, suffused with lust. He tore at her bodice with one hand, reached to push up her skirts with the other. One hand fastened on his, pushing it away. “I'll remove my own soiled linen. Do me that courtesy and spare yourself. Turn your head away.” Her other hand groped beneath her skirt for the dagger. She jerked hard, pulling it from its sheath.

She lay still, the hand holding the dagger hidden at her side. She knew she would get but one chance. The smoke, the heavy weight of his disgusting body grinding on hers threatened to undo her spirit. She prayed she'd have the strength to strike. She had to live.
Holy Saviour, let my granddaughter be with Magda.

Sweating and grunting, he gyrated on top of her. She willed herself not to fight him.
One more moment, Kathryn. One more moment.
And then she felt him push into her. She raised her arm high. She would only get one stab. She
closed her eyes and prayed once more.
Holy Mother, guide my hand.
She fingered the heft of Finn's dagger for an instant, almost lovingly, as though she were seeking strength from it. And then, throwing her arm back until the joint hurt, she drove the dagger deep between Simpson's shoulder blades.

His body stiffened, his member wilted inside her. But he was still alive, his eyes rolling in his head, his lips forming a guttural curse.
Once more, Kathryn. It's no more than gutting an animal. You've seen Agnes do it enough.
But the knife would not withdraw. It was buried too far in, and he still held one arm pinned behind her. She worked the blade hard, up, then down until the blood spurted from his mouth. It dribbled hot against her skin, running in a stream between her breasts. Then his body went limp on top of her, heavy, the lust on his face frozen into a death mask.

She stopped and closed her eyes, her hands dropping back against the bed. Her breath was labored. Her heart pounded a brutal rhythm that throbbed in her temples. Beneath his inert body, she was afraid she was going to drown in her own vomit. She pushed with what little strength she had left. His body rolled off her, his head thudding sickeningly against the bedpost, jarring it against the wall. The torch dislodged from its sconce and toppled onto the floor beside the bed.

Flames shot skyward, catching the edge of the counterpane, traveling up to Simpson's arm, which dangled beside the bed, little tongues of flame licking at his sleeve. Kathryn lurched forward, but her skirt was caught beneath Simpson's body. Tugging frantically at the fabric, she reached back to push him off her skirt, just as the curtains of the great four-poster bed burst into flame, igniting the feather ticking. The smell of burning hair and tar and feathers singed the air around her, choking her, burning her eyes. She struggled to pull herself free. Heat seared her lungs.

One last lunge and she felt the fabric of her skirt tear away.

The smoke was so dense she could see nothing but the silver crucifix hanging at the foot of her bed. It glowed in the heat and seemed to swell in size. The face of the suffering Christ, bathed with the light from the fire, looked almost as though it were made not of metal but flesh, warm melting flesh.

Kathryn struggled to breathe. Tiny flames attached to the burning feathers and floated through the air like some great fiery Pentecostal blaze.

She tried to run, but her legs did not respond. Skewered by a shred of fabric that still pinned her to the corpse of the man she'd just killed? Or transfixed
by the face of the watching Christ? It was the same face that had watched over the widow's bed she'd shared with Finn. The same face that had watched over her when she birthed her sons, when they came squalling into the world, and the midwife had laid them on her stomach. The face that had watched during the long hours of her fevered ravings. The face she'd seen so often that it had become just another furnishing. And He had been there all the time.

Watching over her.

Dame Julian's Mother Christ.

Her clothing caught first, and then that great mass of silvery-white, unbound hair.

She didn't hear Finn climbing the steps. Didn't hear him frantically calling her name. She didn't hear her own voice calling to Colin and Alfred. But in the flames that danced around her, she saw their faces, glowing with radiance and bathed in a golden light.

Kathryn held out her arms to them and stood, transfixed by that illumination, until the fire offered up her body like a giant candle before a fiery molten altar.