The High Sheriff of Huntingdon (11 page)

Helva’s
horrified
intake
of air was
the
only answer
s
h
e needed. “You’re
as
mad as
he is,” she
wheezed.

“No,”
s
ai
d
Elspeth,
“just practical.
”

“He’ll
be
the
d
e
a
t
h
of you, sooner or
later.”

“I’m
not
a great
one
for
patience.
It
was
ever my
failing.
If he’s
going to
murder
me, I’d
just
as
s
o
o
n
he’d hurry up
and
do it. Maybe if I’m
killed
be
fo
r
e
he
exerts his
conjugal rights
I
could end
up
a
martyr.”

Helva’s
heavy
brows beetled
in
confusion
as
s
h
e
con
s
idered
whether Elspeth
was serious or not. Since Elspeth
herself wasn’t
quite
sure,
it
was
an
a
m
u
s
i
n
g
sight.

She’d
gone
through
the
last
three days
in
a kind of
limbo,
w
a
itin
g
for
her husband, hearing nothing
but
nightmare
s
tori
e
s
about his evil
e
x
c
e
s
s
e
s
,
stories
that
would have terrified
a
braver soul
than she.
Stories
of such magnitude
that
s
o
m
e
kind of numbness had
set
in. She
wasn’t
about to believe
the
ghost
stories
Helva
tried
to frighten
her
with,
either
about
the
headless lady who wandered the north tower,
or
about
h
e
r husban
d,
pur
port
e
d
ly a
monster in
the
guise of a dark angel. She
didn’t
believe
in ghosts,
devils, or
witches. But she
did
believe
in evil.

She
was
going
to find out for
herself
whether her husband
was truly
as
wicked as
everyone
insisted.

Not
only did Helva snore
quite loudly,
she
slept
more solidly
than anyone
Elspeth
h
a
d
ever met,
with
t
h
e
pos
sible exception of Sister
Mary Frances
or
Sir
Hugh after
his
fourth bottle.
It
was a
simple
enough
matter for
Elspeth
to
extract the heavy key from
the braided
gold
rope
around her
ample
girth; simple
enough
to unlock the door and
s
t
a
rt
down
the winding
stairs,
following
the
noise of revelry
a
n
d
abandon.

It
was
a warm, cl
ear
night, with the
moon
shining through
the slotted window,
enabling Elspeth
to
find her way
slowly
downwards. “It’s a
good thing I have eyes
like
a cat,”
she
announced
aloud,
pleased by
the
companionship of her voice in
the
dark,
lonely tower. “Otherwise I might
end
up with
a
broken
neck
at
the
bottom of the stairs,
and my
esteemed husband
would
have
no
need
to
murder
me.”

There
was
no
answer,
of
course. The headless ghost, if
s
h
e
even existed,
was
of
course silent, her head
a
n
d
her mouth long gone.
Elspeth was
s
t
i
l
l
dressed
in
her habit, the
rough
w
h
it
e
material
tight around
her slender throat,
t
ho
u
g
h
she’d
dispensed
with
the
uncomfortable
sandals and was now going barefoot.
She wished
she
c
o
u
l
d
make
a
suitable covering for her
hair.
It hung down
her
back
in
a fall of
s
i
lv
e
r
white, giving
her her
own
ghostly
appearance,
a
n
d
she half-hoped she
had
the
slightest
ability to frighten
Alistair Darcourt
as
much as he terrified
her.

She
could
only
guess
t
h
a
t
she
was drawing nearer the great hall. The
noise and
the smell were
overpowering,
Roasted mutton,
spilled
ale,
and fresh bread made a medley of
scents that teased
her
nostrils, reminding
her
of
the thin, tasteless gruel
that
had been delivered to
the
tower
room for
the
last
three
days.
Her
stomach rumbled
almost loudly
enough to be
h
e
ard
over
the
shouts of
encouragement, the
shrill
feminine
laughter.