Sunder (15 page)

Thwack!

“Punish her Lord! Punish that harlot who defies your will!”

Thwack!

“Punish her…” Annis’ voice crumbled beneath the strain of her cries. But her mind continued to animate for God the suffering that should be wrought against Deorca.

She saw her dark body stripped naked and bolted to the earth with nails in her hands and feet.

Thwack!

She saw Deorca look pleadingly up at Annis and beg for her life, tears streaming down her face. Now Annis was standing over with a whip, bringing the whip down across her face, rending the soft flesh that the dark whore used to tempt her husband.

Thwack!

But that will not be the end for Deorca. Annis saw herself lying down—lying on top of that whore, that bleeding, screaming whore. She felt herself lace her fingers around that long neck and squeezing—squeezing the life out of her. She tried to imagine what it would feel like: Deorca’s breath slowing, her chest rising fewer and fewer times as it was pressed against Annis’—and finally the light draining out of her eyes.

Thwack!

The light would drain from her eyes, and a death rattle would escape her lips.

Thwack!

The last lash broke Annis from her meditation and she fell face-down on the ground. The entire world spun around her and the vision of Deorca’s torn and bleeding body pressed against hers faded from her mind; for the first time since her prayer began, she felt the blood pool surrounding her.

God had seen her devotion and heard her prayer. He would deliver this punishment—this, and more. Breathing long and hard, Annis accepted that she was losing consciousness, but she did not care. For when she awoke, all her dreams would have come true.

***

Thorstein tapped lightly on the door in front of him, cursing himself for his cowardice. This was time he did not have—time Deorca did
not
have. But if he was wrong, or perhaps even if he was right, the punishment he would endure for not taking this detour would be absolutely unendurable and he could not take the risk.

The shuffling sound inside the room assured him that his knock had been heard. There was a brief pause, and then…

“Who goes there?” enquired the little voice.

“It is Thorstein, Saoirse. I need to speak with Lady Annis very urgently. Will you please come rouse her?”

Again there was silence in the room, and Thorstein clenched his fists to keep himself from kicking the door down.

“Lady Annis is not prepared to be seen,” came the muffled reply.

Remembering his directive for stealth, Thorstein took a deep breath. Saoirse’s infant, Ciaran, was most certainly asleep in there, and there was a strong possibility Lord Cædda’s newest (as yet unnamed) son was also asleep in the little room. Two shrieking babies would wake everyone in town, so in his very sweetest voice, Thorstein tried again.

“Saoirse, you know I would not request this if it were not very important. Something has happened and our lady may be in danger. I could never violate the sanctity of her bed chamber, so please will you help her?”

Still more silence, then: “All right; I will come. But we must go quickly. Hilde forbade me from going out tonight.”

Thorstein allowed himself a small sigh of relief as he shivered in the night. The panic that pounded him since being awoken by Father had not permitted him to notice the cold, but now as he stood waiting—for an eternity it seemed—for Saoirse to open the door, the sweat on his skin began to freeze him to the core.

Inch by inch, the door slowly and silently opened, revealing Saoirse’s silvery blonde countenance. She was not smiling.

“We should not be out tonight,” she whispered, closing the door behind her. “Hilde says the Bishop is a Dane spy come to kill us.”

“How do you women always hear about such things?” He set off in the direction of the Great Hall, pausing to make sure the girl was following him.

In truth, Saoirse was only slightly younger than him, but she did not show her years as he did. Rather her face still carried the fresh innocence that marked it on the day Cædda had brought her home. It was easy to underestimate her.

“While you live in the stables and follow that priest around, I serve our lady and am privy to our lord’s most private thoughts. What could you possibly know that I do not?”

Despite their haste, Thorstein allowed himself a smile. Even as she chastised his assumption, Saoirse spoke in matter-of-fact tones without a hint of spite. Though she was a pagan, the thought of which still caused him sadness, he did not wonder at all why Lord Cædda had chosen her as a mistress.

“I hope Deorca escapes. I hope she’s already gone.”

Thorstein again was seized with the impulse to ask her how she knew about Deorca’s flight, but caught himself.

“Why do you wish her gone? I assumed you two were friendly now.”

“We are, but she is not safe here. Especially now with the Bishop making a show of knowing her family.”

“It is no fault of hers that this man knew of her father. She is noble; it makes sense that her family would be well known in Castile.”

Saoirse stopped walking and wrapped icy fingers around Thorstein’s wrist.

“Where are your eyes? Do you not see what Lady Annis does to the women of the house? Tonight she swore to smash her own infant’s head if I touched him. And every day she has sworn oaths to set Garrick upon Deorca the next time Cædda leaves the city. No matter what the truth of the Bishop is, she will not rest until Deorca is dead.”

“Lady Annis is unwell because of her pregnancy, but she is a good—”

“How do you imagine Æmma lost her eye?” Saoirse snapped at him.

Her question left Thorstein slack-jawed and silent.

“She was the prettiest of us, if you recall,” she said in a hushed tone.

Not knowing what to say, Thorstein started walking again—troubled even more. He had been so worried about what would happen to Lady Annis if Deorca had gone to her chamber looking for the crucifix. It never occurred to him that Deorca could be the one in peril.

In just a few more steps, the two slaves were inside the Great Hall. The fires had gone out, and no sound came from any quarter of the massive structure.

“My Lady?” Saoirse called out.

Silence. Even the dogs had seemingly deserted the area.

“She was not well when we left her,” Saoirse whispered shakily. “She may still be angry. Perhaps you should—”

“They would lop off my privy parts if I came on her in a state of undress, Saoirse.” Thorstein lightly shoved her toward the doorway. She shot him a glance over her shoulder that was half annoyed, half terrified.

“My Lady?” she called again, moving into the blackness of the bedchamber. In the stillness, Thorstein could hear Saoirse’s shaky breathing as the last of her body melted into the dark.

“Thorstein!”

The piercing shriek of his name stabbed his ears and propelled his body into the bedchamber. He stumbled wildly through the room, widening his eyes in hopes they would adjust to dark.

“Saoirse! Where are you?” he could hear her crying and talking hysterically in her savage language, but he could not see her. His clumsy hands found the table at the end of the room and the candles sitting on it. Grabbing the flint rock out of his pockets, he struck a flame on the first try and swung the resulting feeble light around to face the crying girl.

One look at the scene before him squeezed his stomach with nausea and fear. He was too late.

“Stay with her,” he rasped out. “I’ll get help.”

He was not sure the sobbing girl heard him, but he tore out of the hall as fast as his feet would carry him—screaming inside, but willing his mouth to stay silent.

He ran—ran with all his might towards the chiurgeon’s home—his eyes seeing none of the roads or buildings around him. He only saw Saoirse holding the naked and bloody body of Annis in her arms.

***

A twig snapped.

The sound was so jarring, it may as well have been a pipe bomb going off. Like so many deer in a clearing, Isabella and Emilio jolted at the sound, then froze. The snap had not come from the fire—most certainly it had not. Nor was it likely to be any kind of wildlife, as any beast would have continued to move after the twig snapped. It would not have stopped.

Stiff as a board and breathing as shallow as possible, she allowed her eyes to scan the same trees and grass that she had just been watching. She had not been remiss in keeping watch; there had been no movement or sign that they had been detected. Still there was no movement, but she knew now they were not alone.

“Emilio,” she whispered ever so softly to the equally still figure behind her, “the large tree at the northwest corner of the stink hut has branches that reach over the wall. We’ll have to move quickly, but we might be able to get up and over.”

Whoever stalked them was too quiet to be on horseback, which made the chances of escape much more favorable, but given the darkness and the lack of sound, there was no telling how many adversaries surrounded them.

Fear gripped her so tightly her limbs vibrated, preparing her body for what was coming.
I didn’t mean it!
She screamed at herself for her wish that her pursuers would hurry up and find them.
I swear
I didn’t mean it! Please make them go away!

“Isabella,” Emilio’s equally quiet whisper brought her back from impending hysteria. “I am going to count to three. You will run as fast as you can and get up that tree and over the wall. You will not stop, slow down, or look behind you until you reach the city we discussed.”

Another twig snapped.

“One.” Emilio put his hands flat on the ground in front of him.

“Two.”

Isabella drew in a deep breath and prepared her legs for the dash to the tree behind her.

“Three.” In one smooth motion, Emilio threw an enormous pile of dirt on the fire and drew something small from under his tunic.

The light now snuffed out around her, Isabella frantically dashed directly toward the tree. Despite the roaring blood in her ears, the distinctive
shunk
sound did not go unnoticed as she darted past Emilio.

He has a god-damned extendable baton!
As an Intel Agent, Emilio knew better than most the possible time-altering ramifications of bringing modern devices into the past. His complete disregard for the time stream filled her with anger, but it faded when, in almost cliché cartoon slow motion, a stout shape of a man oozed into her peripheral vision and set on an intercept path with her.

Only a few feet from the tree now, Isabella pumped her legs, reaching with them to attain their maximum stride. The adrenaline had her now, and she was running so fast it almost felt like flying.

A coarse, animalistic grunt assaulted her ears as the man wrapped his arms around her waist and tackled her to the ground.

“I knew it!” Garrick seethed in her ear.

Face down in the dirt, Isabella felt Garrick’s knee land hard between her shoulder blades. They were both gasping for air, but as she lay pinned under his weight, she could hear that Garrick had not come alone.

The sound of men grunting and the
whoosh
of that god-damned baton swinging through the air made her desperately wish she could see what was happening, but Garrick had her head turned toward the tree, now within touching distance. She could also see Garrick’s left leg, which was planted directly next to her head. If only she could move her arm…

“Dear God!”

The voice in the dark was Cædda’s, and at that sentence, the sounds of fighting stopped.

Garrick shifted his weight to look at what was happening, which is exactly what Isabella needed. Without hesitating—without breathing—she freed her left hand and reached directly up over her head, taking hold of her target.

Garrick’s testicles now firmly in her hand, she flexed her fingers and squeezed—hard. He shrieked in an awful piercing cry of pain that echoed off the trees, and Isabella bucked him off her, rising to her feet and once again snatching Garrick’s dagger out of his belt. The sword she had not even noticed he was carrying hit the ground with a heavy
thunk
, but she did not bend to retrieve it.

There was only a split second to make her decision. As she turned with the dagger raised, the slow-motion vision giving way to a sudden break-neck tempo, she looked at the scene laid out before her.

Selwyn held Emilio at sword-point, while Cædda—frozen in dread—gripped the crucifix in his fist, staring at it in horror
.

So that’s what made him cry out.
He knew he had given that crucifix to his wife, and now he found it on a man he thought to be his enemy. He must be terrified.

Recalling her close-combat training from Coronado, she understood there was no possibility of beating these men in hand-to-hand combat.
Get around a man’s strength,
her instructor had said,
don’t take it on directly
.