Kathryn Le Veque (12 page)

Edward
didn’t say any more; in truth, he wasn’t sure what more to say. His daughter
was determined and he couldn’t shake a distinct sense of foreboding. If the
Hospitallers didn’t punish her for attempting to help a prisoner escape, then
Dodge would surely punish her for coming to Clavell Hill. Either way she was
damned.
 
But he could not reproach her in
good faith; he had known, once, what it was to be young and insanely in love.
And it had been clear, even to him, that Alisanne and Roane had something
special.

When it
finally came into view, Clavell Hill wasn’t what he had expected. Mayhap he
didn’t know exactly what
to
expect, but it was nothing as he
imagined.
 
A former
Roman fortress, the Normans had repaired the crumbling walls and keep
, leaving
it a strange mixture of architecture and building materials.
 
An ancient Roman and Christian graveyard,
combined, lay against one of the rocky slopes.
 
The shape was boxy, ugly, and as Edward gazed upon it, thought it looked
more like a prison than a church.
 
There
were no battlements, at least not as he knew them, but he could see people
lingering within the guarded courtyard.

A small
town, including a big Norman church, had grown up around the fortress.
 
It was busy, full of people, who milled about
on the main avenue, conducting business or conversation.
 
As they lingered on the edge of town,
studying the hell they were about to plunge into, Edward was coming to feel
ill.

“We are
here,” he said to his daughter. “’Tis looming before us like a great beast.”

Alisanne’s
senses heightened; concentrating, she could smell
a coldness
,
a rot, drifting on the wind, but she couldn’t see much but a big dark mass in
the distance. Her body flushed with fear.
 
“Is it so horrible, father?”

“Bad
enough,” he said. “Now, how do you propose we get into this place?”

She
thought a moment. “We shall tell them that I am his sister. Surely they cannot
refuse his family.”

Edward
shrugged. Alisanne, sensing his disapproval, struggled to concoct something
more believable.
“Mayhap…mayhap if we seek employment as
servants.
Tell them that our farm was destroyed in some Biblical
disaster, like pestilence. Mayhap then, as men of God, they would feel sorry
for us and take us in.”

It was
plausible, but Edward was still doubtful.
“What if some of
the brothers recognize you from Kinlet?
They’ll tell Father Bordeleaux
and your game will be ended.”

Alisanne
thought furiously. “Then we must disguise ourselves. Mayhap some dirt on our
faces, a cloak around our head, and surely they will not know who we are.”

It was
as good a plan as any, but that wasn’t saying much. A quarter of a mile from
the structure, Edward reined the old steed to a halt and pulled his daughter
down. “Here,” he plopped some mud in her hand from a puddle on the side of the
road. “Put this on you.”

Alisanne
could smell the urine and she balked. “But this… this is…!”

“There’s
nothing else, girl!” Edward snapped. “Besides, they’ll not want to get a close
look at you if you smell like a gutter rat. Now put it on!”

He was right.
Alisanne groaned as she smeared the mud on her body, dirtying the peach colored
dress Roane had purchased for her. It nearly killed her to do it.
 
Before long, both she and Edward were
appropriately filthy and swathed in their cloaks. Edward put her back on the
horse and began leading the animal down the road.

“Now we
shall see how stupid the brothers are,” he mumbled.

Alisanne
hoped they were stupid enough.

CHAPTER TEN

He wasn’t accustomed to feeling
such hopelessness. Even in his darkest hour, there had always been a ray of
light to convince him that all was not lost. But not now; Roane gazed up at the
tiny window at the top of his cell, more of a drain and an air hole than an
actual window. But it was big enough to let some light through, just enough to
tease him.
 
Around him was unimaginable
filth, the oldness of the ancient Roman fort more evident here than anywhere
else. He sat, daydreaming, wondering what other prisoners had languished here
before him. He wondered if they had met their fate as bravely as he was
expected to meet his.

Death by Purification.
 
The
thought of it didn’t make him queasy as it did yesterday when his sentence had
been announced.
 
Oddly enough, now he was
rather resigned to it.
 
He’d seen death
by purification before, an indescribable act of horror and pain all in the name
of God. He didn’t think God would approve much of these things men attributed
to him, but his opinion didn’t matter.
 
God apparently didn’t care for many things these days. All that mattered
was that in three days, after the event of the Sabbath, Roane was to die.

A rodent ran across the floor of
his cell, disappearing into some hole in the dark recesses. Roane was in an
inverted vault, a bottle-shaped cell
with
the sloping sides and the narrowest part at the top. It was a good eight feet
to the trap door above, a heavy panel that opened on occasion when the brothers
felt like feeding him.
 
In a week he’d
hardly had more than the ingredients to comprise one decent meal.
 
And he knew all of that food, scraps of bread
and a few dried bits of
cheese,
had come from his old
friend Albert.
 
As weak as he was from
his chest injury, the lack of food and squalid conditions were making recovery
very difficult. But he had no real desire to fully recover if they were simply
going to execute him.

His thoughts drifted from his
impending death to visions of Alisanne. In truth, he’d thought of little else
since his imprisonment. She was Dodge’s wife now and he blocked out all of the
horrible things Dodge had probably done to her by now.
Her
sweet body, her beautiful face, and her tender soul all at the mercy of that
animal.
 
If Roane thought too long
on it, he began to sweat with rage. He was helpless to aid her and he knew it.
He could only pray that Dodge would grow tired of sporting with her and leave
her alone; it was the one great hope that kept him from going completely
insane.
 
He swore the first thing he
would do after he died was to come back as a rat and chew on Dodge in the
middle of the night and give him an infection that would leave him a drooling
idiot the rest of his life. He drew some strange satisfaction at that thought.

The trap door over his head
opened and the light streaming in, as weak as it was, was enough to blind
him.
 
Roane blinked and held up a hand to
shield his eyes from the brilliant rays.
 
Instead of food being thrown into his pit as expected, a rope suddenly
dangled from the hole and a body squirmed down it.
 
Startled, Roane struggled to rise to his
feet.

“Sir Roane,” a small man hit the
floor of the vault and rushed toward him. “We have come for you!”

Roane stared at the man, unrecognizing,
until realization abruptly dawned.
 
A
surge of hope and excitement hit him so hard that he nearly collapsed, grabbing
the man by the arm to steady
himself
. “Edward de Soulant!”
he hissed. “What in the hell…?”

Edward shook his head in a quick,
cutting gesture.
 
“No time, Sir Roane,
no
time. We must get you out of here!”

Roane was beside himself. “But I
can’t…
 
I don’t understand.
 
What in the hell are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to get you out,”
Edward said as if Roane was a simpleton. “I’ve waited eight days to gain the
proper time and access, and God has finally shown me the way. But time is of
the essence.”

Roane gazed at him as if he
didn’t believe a word the man was saying. “How is it that you have managed to
accomplish…
this
?” He gestured to the
rope, the trapdoor, the room in general.

Edward flashed a grin. “I am now
a servant to the Hospitallers. I’ve been serving the prisoners and guards of
the vault their meals for nearly a week in the hopes that somehow I would
discover a way to free you. Did you not get the food I threw you?”

“Then it was you?”

“Aye.”

More was becoming clear to Roane’s
shocked mind. “What of the guards now?”

“They’re sleeping.
Ale with a draught of sleeping potion in it.”

“Where did you get the sleeping
potion?”

“I stole it from one of the
priests.
 
I heard him say that it causes
him to sleep for hours.”

“Christ,” Roane breathed. “If
that is true, then they will be asleep for quite some time.
 
But I can’t simply
walk
out of here. Everyone knows me!”

“You can walk out unnoticed if we
conceal you,” Edward insisted. He began to rummage around in the layers of
clothes he was wearing and Roane realized the man had brought several garments
with him, wrapped around his body. Edward began throwing things at him. “Put
this on! And this! We must hurry!”

Dumbfounded but not senseless, Roane
struggled to put on the articles of dirty clothing. “What of Alisanne?” he
demanded as he struggled with a tunic. “How is she?”

“She is well enough,” Edward, in
truth, was terrified. He kept watching the trapdoor for signs of movement. But
the ale he had brought the guards was working its magic well; they had been in
a drunken stupor when he last saw them. “She’s here, with me, and.…”

“Here?” Roane nearly toppled over
in his surprise. “You brought her
here?”

Edward fixed him in the eye.
 
“She is the reason I myself am here,” he
said. “She was going to come with or without my help. I could not let her come
alone.”

“Damnation, where is she?”

“Working in
the kitchen.
Where do
you think I got all of the extra food to throw to you? The brothers were not
providing for you at all, so Alisanne has collected the scraps.”

“But what of
her sight?
She cannot
see very well and the kitchens are a dangerous place for her.”

“They keep her from the fire. She
churns butter, kneads dough, things like that.”

The reality of the danger they
were in was not lost on Roane, more so now that Alisanne was involved. He found
he could hardly breathe. “Christ,” he hissed again. “I should have known…
certainly she knows I would do the same for her in any given situation.
 
But what about Dodge?”

Edward shook his head, helping Roane
to finish dressing when the man faltered. It was obvious that he was still very
weak. “He is the least of our worries at the moment. He probably does not yet
realize we are gone. It is your friends of the brotherhood I am concerned
with.”

Roane nodded in mute agreement.
“And John Adam?”

Edward came to a halt, his
hurried manner wavering.
 
“I knew naught what
else to do, Sir Roane,” he said as if apologizing in advance for his actions. “Alisanne
and I sent him to your brother to ask for help.”

Roane’s eyes softened with
approval.
“To Gargrave?”

“Indeed.”

“How long
ago?”

“Almost three weeks now.”

Roane sighed, heavily, as if a
great weight had been lifted. “My brother is mostly likely already on his way
here.” He put his hand on Edward’s arm, in appreciation. “The Hospitallers
cannot hold out against my brother. Bowen will destroy them if they resist in
releasing me.”

“You are sure?”

“I will stake my life on it. And
I have.”

“But Alisanne told me of the bad
blood between you and your father. Are you quite sure…?”

“My father is dead.
 
My brother does not hold the same grudge, I
assure you.”

Edward finished helping him dress
in the peasant garb that stank like manure.
 
“Forgive me for saying so, but mayhap you should not put so much faith
in your brother’s appearance.
 
We are not
even certain that Joseph Ari made it to him; mayhap something befell him along
the road. There are so many uncertainties."

Roane’s confidence subdued
somewhat. “But one can hope for the best.”

“Yet one cannot depend on the
uncertain.”

“Is that why you are determined
to smuggle me out of here? In case my brother does not come?”

Edward gazed up at him, suddenly
looking very old.
 
“Alisanne is my only
child. I would do anything for her happiness. I have already failed her with
this horrific marriage to de Vere, but I will not fail her where you are
concerned. “