Secret Heart (33 page)

She
followed him down and down those narrow, curving stairs until they
came to a landing that was less than half the size of the landing
above. One of Garit’s men stuck his torch into a sconce. The blaze
from it illuminated the rough stone walls and floor. The masons
hadn’t bothered to smooth the stone in this area. Two doors, on
opposite sides of the landing, provided the only break in the solid
stone.

“
This
appears to be the lowest level,” Garit said, “unless another
staircase lies behind either of those doors.”

Jenia
tried to take a deep breath. The coppery smell of old blood mingled
with the foul odor of human excrement nearly choked her, so she
didn’t see Anders open one of the doors, which was unbarred. But
Garit’s exclamation caught her full attention.

“
Where do
you suppose this passage leads?” Garit stepped nearer to look
inside the doorway.

“
Most
likely, to one of the lower tunnels,” Jenia suggested, trying to
see around his solid figure. “You know, Garit, I think you may have
hit upon a truth when you asked me earlier who has been tending to
the outer door to the tunnels. I suppose bodies could be carried
out of the dungeon through this doorway without anyone above
suspecting what is happening down here.”

“
This
would certainly make a good secret escape route in time of siege,”
Anders remarked. “Who would think of looking in the dungeon for the
lord of the castle and his family? Most invaders would seek the
nobles in the tower keep and the lord’s chamber.”

“
True
enough.” Roarke shrugged, dismissing the subject. “What’s behind
the second door? Is it unlocked like the first one? I don’t see any
hooks for keys.”

“
Apparently, no one is inside.” Garit tried the door. It
opened easily.

“
Perhaps
the warder keeps the keys on his person,” Roarke suggested. “From
the location, I’d guess only the very worst prisoners are kept down
here.”

“
Or the
most dangerous,” Jenia said. “Roarke, please take your torch in
there. Let me see the cell.”

She thought he must have heard the peculiar
note in her voice, for he looked hard at her. The sensations of
terror and grief were so strong that she felt ill. She wanted to
turn and flee, but she could not. Instead, she made herself walk
into the cell. Roarke and Garit followed her, Roarke holding his
torch high.

“
What a
place,” Garit muttered. “I pity any poor soul who’s confined in
here.”

“
Pity me,
then,” Jenia said, barely able to speak as the terrible truth burst
upon her. “I know this cell. I lived here for half a year. This is
where Chantal and I were held. This cell is where Chantal
died.”

“
Are you
sure?” Roarke asked.

“
Here?”
Garit stared at Jenia as if he feared she had gone mad.

“
Oh, yes.
This is where we were held.” Anger and the memory of bloody horror
nearly undid her. Bile rose into her throat. Jenia clapped both
hands over her mouth and swallowed several times to keep herself
from being sick. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, as she fully
comprehended Walderon’s perfidy, rage overcame nausea. Furious
words tumbled out of her. She couldn’t have stopped herself, but
she had no desire to stop, and from somewhere in her swirling
thoughts she knew Roarke and Garit would understand the anger that
burned in her.

“
How
dare
Walderon do such a thing?” she shrieked. “How dare he have
Chantal and me struck on the head, tied up and blindfolded, and
then carried all the way from Calean City to Thury, to keep us
imprisoned here, in Chantal’s own castle? Oh, if only he were here
now and I had a sword!” Her last exclamation echoed off the cold
stone walls.

“
This was
the one place he could keep his prisoners in absolute secrecy,
knowing no one would ever find you and Chantal, unless he wanted
you found,” Garit said, his voice thick with emotion. “The wretched
villain!”

“
Walderon
will pay,” Roarke said quietly. “Never doubt it.”

His calm promise soothed Jenia as nothing
else could have done. Some of her fury receded and she spoke more
softly.

“
The cell
looks smaller by the light from a torch. We never had so much
light. Chantal and I could only tell day from night by the faint
light that came to us through one, high window.” She pointed to a
narrow slit in the stone. “We became so accustomed to the darkness
that when our jailors opened the door to push a tray of food in
here to us, the flames of their torches blinded us.”

“
Chantal,
my love,” Garit whispered. “How I wish I had known.”

“
How
could you know? No one knew. So far as the world was concerned, we
had simply vanished.” Jenia began to walk around the tiny chamber.
Then she halted and pointed a trembling finger at a dark stain on
the floor. “There is where Chantal fell.”

“
Just
there? That stain was made by her blood?” Garit looked ready to
give way to tears.

Jenia,
strengthened by her righteous anger, was dry-eyed as she gazed at
the spot. Even so, when Garit went to his knees on the bare stone,
to whisper a prayer for the peace of Chantal’s spirit, Jenia knelt
beside him. Though her head was bowed and her mind was on Chantal,
some part of her was aware of the way Roarke was studying the cell
inch by inch, waving his torch about so he could see it
better.

“
There’s
no sign that any crime was committed here,” Roarke said after his
examination was complete. “Not even the stain is real proof.
Walderon’s men cleaned up after themselves rather well.”

“
Cleaned
up?” Garit stood to face his friend. “Concealed the evidence of a
horrible crime, you mean. They had a body to dispose of. What did
they do with Chantal? Where did they take her?”

“
Perhaps
Aunt Sanal knows something,” Jenia suggested.

“
We can
do nothing more here,” Roarke said. Still holding the torch, he
gestured for Jenia and Garit to precede him out the door. “I
believe Lady Sanal is in the solar.”

As they
headed for the first flight of stairs, Jenia stopped, listening.
Roarke halted when she did, and he touched her arm and shook his
head to warn her to be quiet. Raising his brows in a silent
question he looked toward the men-at-arms. Several of them nodded
to indicate they had also heard. Garit was a few steps above them
and he continued on his way. Plainly, with his thoughts turned so
far inward, he hadn’t noticed the sound the others had
heard.

“
Someone
is down below, in the passage we just opened,” Roarke said, his low
voice confirming Jenia’s suspicions. “No one should be
there.”

Acting
quietly, he chose four of Garit’s men-at-arms to investigate the
tunnel with him.

“
Stay
here with the others,” he whispered to Jenia.

She
didn’t protest. An uncontrollable shaking had overtaken her, the
result, she knew, of the emotions evoked by returning to the place
where the cousin she loved as a sister had died. She sat down
abruptly on one of the stone steps. There she waited, watched over
by the two remaining men-at-arms, who stood on either side of her
with drawn swords, one of them gazing up the stairs and the other
watching the open doorway where Roarke and his four companions had
disappeared.

Jenia took long, slow breaths and tried to
calm herself. At least, she reasoned, part of the mystery that had
tormented her was solved. She now knew where she had been for half
a year. Knowing provided some relief, but questions still
remained.

Where,
she asked herself, would Walderon’s men have put Chantal’s body?
Certainly not in the family crypt beneath the chapel, for the
castle chaplain, a minor mage, would have noticed any disturbance
or alteration to the stone tombs and he’d have raised questions
about such a violation.

She had just reached this point in her
reasoning when Roarke and the men-at-arms returned.

“
We found
nothing,” Roarke said. “We followed the passageway to the place
where it opens into the same tunnel we used earlier today. We found
no sign of footprints in the muck that covers the floor of that
particular tunnel. I think we must assume no one has been in there
for a long time, and that the noise we heard came from some other
part of the castle.” He waved a hand to indicate Jenia should
ascend the stairs ahead of him.

She did
as he wished, telling herself Roarke was undoubtedly correct about
the origin of the noise. Returning to her old cell had affected her
deeply, so her imagination was starting at every scratch of a rat’s
claws on stone, or at a distant echo, just as used to happen when
she was imprisoned. No sound emanating from the bowels of the
castle could threaten her now. Still, she climbed to the upper
level in some haste, wanting to be away from the dampness and cold,
and from the paralyzing fear she had once known.

Garit
wasn’t in the great hall.

“
He’s
gone above, to the solar,” one of the maidservants told Jenia when
she asked.

She headed for the stairs. Roarke followed
her.

“
Jenia,
please allow me to question Lady Sanal,” he said. “I’ve had some
experience at interrogating unwilling informants. Where you are
obviously distressed, I can talk to your aunt without excess
emotion.”

“
Do you
imagine Garit is being unemotional?” she demanded. “If you think I
am distressed, consider his state of mind. Garit will very likely
threaten to strangle Aunt Sanal if she doesn’t tell him everything
he wants to know.”

“
All the
more reason for you to let me handle this,” Roarke said.

The solar
was a pleasant room, the one place in the castle given over to the
comfort of women. In years past Chantal’s father had ordered a row
of long, narrow windows installed, so there would be adequate light
for weaving or embroidery and, in the case of Chantal and Jenia,
daylight enough for reading and for the practice of their writing
skills. As young girls they had spent hours at a table near those
windows, bent over their slates, giggling together behind their
hands whenever their tutor looked away. Lady Sanal’s embroidery
frame now stood where the table once was. A basket of brightly
colored threads and a tray of folded linen rested on the floor
beside the frame.

At the
moment, Sanal wasn’t busy with her needlework. She was standing
with her back against one of the windows while Garit towered over
her in a threatening manner. Barely controlled fury was apparent in
every line of his body. Defiance was written on Sanal’s
face.

“
I tell
you again, Lord Garit; until very recently I had no certain proof
of my husband’s scheming against Chantal. I did know how insistent
he was that she must wed Lord Malin,” Sanal declared.

“
Those
two young women were confined right here, in the dungeon just below
us,” Garit informed Sanal in a cold, hard tone that Jenia had never
heard from him before. “Do you dare to claim no knowledge of that
crime?”

“
I dare,
because it is true,” Sanal cried. Seeing Jenia and Roarke, she
thrust out both hands as if to ward off the large, angry man who
faced her. “I have told you already, Walderon never kept me
informed about his plans. I’m sure the servants didn’t know who was
locked down there, either. I beg you not to frighten them with your
fierce questions, as you have tried to frighten me.”

“
You must
have guessed,” Garit insisted. “When Jenia and Chantal disappeared,
you must have suspected Walderon of knowing something about
it.”

“
I did
suspect him,” Sanal said. “I asked questions; in Walderon’s
opinion, too many questions. He struck me several times for my
impertinence. Then he tossed me into bed. Violence excites him, you
see. A necessary marital duty put an end to my questions.” Sanal
stopped, her mouth twisting at what was undoubtedly a most
unpleasant memory. Garit drew back a little and Sanal took a long,
unsteady breath before she continued.

“
Walderon
always has someone locked in the dungeon. Seldom do I know who his
prisoners are.” She spoke more calmly now. “I avoid the lowest
levels of the castle. It’s a dreadful place down there.”

“
Yes,”
Jenia said, “I know it is. Chantal and I survived there for six
months. Tell me, Aunt Sanal; where did you think we had gone for
all that time?”

“
After
Walderon told me how the two of you had fled from Calean City and
could not be found, I dared to hope you and Chantal had taken
refuge in a beguinage somewhere, so you were safely beyond
Walderon’s reach. While he made a great show of searching for you,
I prayed he would never find you.”

“
Did I
hear aright?” Lord Giles entered the solar. He had mounted the
steps so quietly that no one there noticed his coming.

“
Giles!”
Sanal rushed across the solar to meet him. “Jenia and Chantal were
held in the dungeon, here at Thury.”

“
So I
just learned from a man-at-arms.” Lord Giles took her by the
shoulders, holding her away from him so he could gaze directly into
her eyes.