What kept hope alive were Elspeth’s visits. Although she was under the close supervision of the Abbot’s guard, Elspeth was allowed to see her for a short time every few days. El supplied her with news—news about the castle folk, news about the Abbot, and, most recently, news from the village.
When, during one of her visits, El whispered to her that she had a message from a young man in the village, a good man who took care of the old and the sick and who’d promised to remember Lady Cynthia in his prayers, she’d known at once who it was.
From then on, there was frequent news from that “good man.” She learned that though he’d cast off his cassock, he’d never ceased doing the Lord’s work, that he now toiled alongside the villagers, right under the oblivious nose of the Abbot, and that the wheels of her rescue had been set in motion.
As for the Abbot, according to Elspeth, he’d begun gathering men about him—mostly overgrown dullards and religious fanatics—recruiting them into his personal army. Each day, more scarlet knights trickled in to usurp the chambers of Wendeville’s nobility. No doubt he planned to commandeer both Charing and Wendeville. She realized now that had likely been his intent all along.
She also learned from Elspeth that the Abbot was reluctant to execute her until her babe was born. He may believe she carried the devil’s spawn, but until irrefutable proof was obtained, church doctrine prevented him from laying a hand on an innocent child.
Cynthia stroked her swelling abdomen as it twitched now with subtle movements. About three more months. It would pass in the blink of an eye, she knew. Then, if Garth’s rescue somehow failed, since none could gainsay the edict of the almighty Abbot, he’d have his way. Cynthia would burn at the stake as a witch.
The thought brought despair down upon her like an abrupt June squall, and unwelcome tears flooded her eyes. Her chest hitched, and a sob fell from her lips before she could stop it. She clapped a fist against her mouth and struggled to cease her weeping, cursing the emotions which, of late, seemed to overwhelm her without warning.
Surely Garth would save her. And even if he couldn’t, the babe would survive, she told herself, dabbing at her eyes with a corner of her surcoat. Elspeth and Roger would see to that. As for her, if all else failed, if she was to be executed, she intended to go to her death painlessly. When they came for her, she’d ask El to fetch her opium wine. With any luck, she’d be half-dead long before the flames licked her flesh.
Then she chided herself for her doubt. Garth would save her. He’d promised her as much. There was nothing to cry over.
Footfalls sounded outside the door.
“My lady!” El called.
It would distress El to see her thus, so she wiped away the last vestiges of her tears, then stood by the small barred window. “El, what is it?”
El’s face was bright with excitement, which she cautiously tempered for the sake of the guard. “The garden is doing very well today, my lady,” she said, adding pointedly, “You wouldn’t believe how green it is.”
“Green?”
“Aye. Green. As far as the eye can see.”
Cynthia blinked. That was impossible. It was October. The garden couldn’t be green.
El nodded emphatically. “I told you the monkshood would bear fruit.”
“Monkshood?” Cynthia furrowed her brows. The monkshood would have gone to seed weeks ago.
Elspeth screwed up her forehead in frustration. “Aye, my lady. I can see the horseradish from my window. The wolfsbane will be coming up soon.”
What the devil was El talking about? Green? Monkshood? Horseradish? Wolfsbane? “I don’t—“
“Wolfsbane,” Elspeth enunciated clearly. “Scores of them have popped their heads up already.”
Cynthia stared into Elspeth’s eyes, which were fierce with the effort of trying to make her understand. Then, slowly, she began to decipher El’s words. Monkshood. The monk had to be Garth. Wolfsbane. The wolves were likely Garth’s brothers. Horseradish. El had seen horses from her window, scores of them. Clad in the colors of de Ware, it would make the land green as far as the eye could see.
Cynthia’s heart fluttered with an emotion she’d almost forgotten. Hope. She clutched at the bars and silently mouthed, He comes for me?
Elspeth smiled and nodded.
“Thank God,” Cynthia choked out. The guard swung his head around with a suspicious scowl, and she added, “I was afraid the monkshood…might have languished in my absence.”
The impatient guard motioned for Elspeth to leave, and El gave her a quick pat on the hand.
“Never worry, my lady,” El said with a wink of farewell. “It’s stubborn, that monkshood, near impossible to stifle.”
When she had gone, Cynthia turned away from the door. Her eyes filled again, this time with joy. Garth had sent for his brothers! He’d done it. He’d come to her rescue.
She leaned back upon the cold iron door. The torch in the hall flickered, making her shadow dance a merry jig of celebration across the damp stones of her cell.
They might survive—the babe and her—and hope lightened her heart.
She wished she’d been able to ask Elspeth more. What was the Abbot doing? How were the castle folk taking the news? And where was Garth? But then, she supposed she’d learn in time. For now, it was enough to know that the knights of de Ware—scores of them—were coming to rescue her.
The babe wiggled inside her as if sharing her delight, and she laughed aloud, though the sound was almost like a sob.
“Soon,” she promised, soothing the infant with long gentle strokes. “Soon we’ll be free of this place.”
In a few hours at best, a few days at most, she’d walk through the dungeon door, never to return again.
“The first thing I intend to do is stretch out on the sod of the garden,” she said, half to the babe, half to herself. “Just soak up the sun’s warmth…smell the ripening apples…hear the cuckoo’s call…run my fingers through the fallen leaves…gold, orange, yellow, crimson.” She closed her eyes, imagining it.
The sound of approaching footsteps broke through her thoughts. Suddenly the Abbot appeared at the door. He looked agitated and displeased, and an icy trickle of fear ran down her neck.
“What do you want?” she croaked.
He beckoned the guard, who rattled a key in the lock of the door.
“What…” she began again, swallowing the words involuntarily.
The door screeched open, and the guard grabbed her by the elbow. As ludicrous as it was, she resisted him, strangely reluctant to step from the cell that had been her home for so many weeks.
“Come along, child,” the Abbot said as the guard lugged her out. “It’s time for a bonfire.”
“Nay!” she screamed, fighting against the guard with all her might. “Nay!”
This couldn’t be happening—not while the babe was still unborn, not with the Wolves de Ware at the gates, not with Garth on his way.
Her eyes rolling wildly, she pulled against the guard, dragging her feet and grabbing at the stone walls, desperate to slow her progress.
The last horrifying thought she had as the guard scraped her feet over the rough stones and hauled her up into the blinding daylight of the great hall was that she’d never have the chance to take her opium.
“Chaplain!”
Garth looked up from the pile of timber he’d just split. The villagers still called him chaplain, though he kept his wooden cross inside his tunic and hadn’t delivered a sermon or spoken a prayer since the Abbot’s arrival.
It was Elspeth, and it was the first time he’d seen her on a horse. From the awkward gallop, it may have been the first time she’d ridden a horse. She bounced crazily in the saddle, her wimple flapping like a huge dove perched upon her head.
He brought the ax down one last time, wedging it into the thick oak stump, and then wiped callused hands on his nubby linen tunic. Stinging sweat dripped into his eye as he squinted toward the sun to watch the maidservant approach.
Every few days, Elspeth brought him news of Cynthia. It was the only way Garth kept from going mad, living here out of harm’s way in the leatherworker’s cottage. Even so, he suffered the anguish of hell, knowing Cynthia languished in a cold, dank dungeon.
He yearned to see her, to watch the babe, his babe, swell her belly. He craved her smell, her taste, her touch. He’d neither slept nor eaten properly for weeks, stretched to the limit upon the rack of waiting, and he’d distracted himself from that agony by strengthening his body for the battle to come. For hours on end, he split wood, drove oxen, built fences, practiced with a sword—anything to keep his mind off Cynthia’s ordeal.
Almost three months had passed since he’d penned the letter to his brother. Surely it had reached Holden by now. He’d sent three riders along to guarantee its delivery. Certainly the message—a cryptic invitation to Garth’s wedding requesting the full force of his army—would send Holden bolting for his steed. Any day now, his brother would gallop up to the walls of Wendeville with his entourage…his fierce, heavily armed entourage.
“Chaplain!” came El’s broken cry. “Chaplain!”
Garth frowned. Tears streamed down El’s florid cheeks as she reined the horse to a stumbling halt. Something must be wrong. Garth hurtled forward to help her down.
“Chaplain!” she sobbed. “You must come!”
He took her shoulders. “What’s happened?”
The poor maid could barely speak around her gasping and sobbing. “Your kin…are a half-day away.”
A sudden rush of sweet air filled Garth’s chest. He knew he could count on Holden. “But this is good news, El!” He swooped her up and swung her around once.
But she shook her head and slapped at his arms till he put her down. “Nay,” she moaned, covering her face with her hands. “You don’t understand. The Abbot knows they’re coming. He’s not going to wait. He’s…he’s building a pyre.”
Garth’s heart stopped. “Now?”
She wailed.
Horror sucked the breath from Garth’s lungs.
“You have to save her,” Elspeth begged, clawing at his tunic. “You have to.”
Garth’s body took over while his mind reeled in shock. In one fluid movement, he mounted the horse and wheeled the steed about, giving Elspeth a grim, reassuring nod.
He hadn’t ridden at such a pace since he was a boy, but the skill came as readily to him now as the words of the Lord’s Prayer. Mile after mile, driven by the fuel of fury, man and horse chewed up the road, spitting out pebbles and dust behind them. Strangely, there was no sign of his brother’s knights and no time to wonder what had become of them. By the time Wendeville’s towers broke the horizon, the poor horse’s sides were heaving as it wheezed through its frothy mouth.
But the loyal palfrey galloped all the way up the long hill to the castle, past the barbican, and through the courtyard gate, stopping only when Garth tugged back on the reins to avoid the milling throng of humanity.
The courtyard overflowed with people—nobles, servants, peasants, merchants, and more scarlet-clad, mounted knights than he expected. Except for the merchants, who enthusiastically hawked their wares as if they’d gathered for a spring fair, a strange hush reigned over the crowd. Women talked behind their hands, and men shuffled their feet uncomfortably.
Was he too late? Was it over? Was she dead? His heart pounded against his chest. His eyes raced over the courtyard and lit on a single blackened pole pointing at the sky like an accusing finger. But the crowd was too thick with mounted knights to make out what lay at its base.
He pressed his mount forward, pushing between two quarreling boys, skirting by a pastry vendor, nudging aside a pushy wool merchant with a huge wagonload of fabric.
At last, he saw Cynthia. She was bound fast to the pole with heavy cord, her skin as pale as alabaster where it kissed the dark wood. The bones of her face stood prominent now, and her hair, dulled by filth, lay matted to her head, making her look frail and helpless. The cool October wind fluttered the edges of her grimy linen shift, causing her to shudder, and exposed in indecent relief the burgeoning swell of her belly.
Bitter rage filled his mouth, rage so deep he could find no words for it. He kicked his mount, intent on charging the scaffold and freeing Cynthia. But the horse was hemmed in. Someone clutched at Garth’s knee in the close quarters, but he ignored it, trying desperately to maneuver the steed forward. Now someone tugged insistently on his tunic, demanding his attention. He cursed and pulled hard on the reins, frustrated to madness. Standing in the stirrups, he swatted away the arm that continued to grab at him.
He’d considered dismounting altogether when someone made that decision for him, dragging him out of the saddle and onto the sod on his hindquarters. Shaking his dazed head, he prepared to give his attacker a tongue-lashing. But when he saw who towered over him in swirling burgundy velvet skirts, all he could manage was a stunned gasp.
“Do you want to save the lady or not?” the woman snapped, her eyes glittering.
Though her voice crackled with familiar sarcasm, he’d never heard sweeter words.
Despite the feast of fresh air, Cynthia could inhale only a thread of it between her compressed lips. Her betraying knees wobbled beneath her. It was only hunger, she tried to convince herself, and yet her belly roiled at the thought of food. It was the cold making her shiver, she insisted, though clammy sweat beaded her forehead. But it wasn’t fear. Never fear. After all, death had been a familiar companion. Death was nothing to fear. Death brought peace, an end to suffering.
So why did the sight of the tall, black-shrouded executioner looming over her with a pitched brand snatch the very air from her lungs?
Red-clad soldiers stacked tinder haphazardly at her feet. Someone jerked at her bonds to check the knots. Then the Abbot himself stepped up onto a tall wooden crate serving as a makeshift platform. She saw now that he looked uncharacteristically slovenly, as if he’d just come from his bed. His robes were askew, his meager black hair combed in haste. He seemed harried and nervous, as if he were all too aware of the mortal sin he was about to commit and in a hurry to put it behind him. He tugged the hood of his cassock closer about his scrawny neck and held a pasty hand up for silence.
“In the name of God,” he announced self-righteously, “I condemn this woman”—he pointed an accusing finger—“to burn as a witch.”
Faces swam before Cynthia…Elspeth, Jeanne, Mary… friends, foes, strangers.
“The proofs being these three,” the Abbot droned on. “That she used herbs to cure which are commonly known as the devil’s. That she used enchantments to coerce others to break the covenant of Lent. And that she bears the seed of Satan, having no earthly father to lay claim to her infant.”
A bold voice split the air. “As I’ve said all along, I lay claim to her infant!”
Cynthia’s vision cleared instantly at the familiar sound, and hope shot straight into her heart. The crowd parted, and a muscular man made his way brazenly up to the Abbot. Cynthia held her breath. Was it Garth?
“I am the father.”
It couldn’t be. This man had the shoulders of an ox and legs like two young oaks. He wore the rough tunic and leggings of a peasant, and his skin was bronzed by the sun. And yet…
He turned to her then, enveloping her in his forest green gaze, a gaze filled with such love and promise that she nearly collapsed into relieved tears.
“Father Garth,” the Abbot intoned. “I had hoped your separation from this woman’s evil influences would make you see the error of your ways. But alas, I fear it’s not so.” He clucked his tongue. “You see,” he announced, “how the witch has driven poor Garth to insanity and godlessness. There is no hope for him, except…” The Abbots’ eyes sparked with sudden inspiration. “Except that the purifying fire might refine his soul as well.”
The Abbot nodded to the executioner. The immense hooded figure snagged Garth about the arm in an iron grip and wrested him up the pile o
f kindling to the scaffold.
“Nay!” Cynthia screamed, her hopes killed as quickly as they’d been born.
“What the devil?” Garth cried. “Unhand me! What you do is blasphemy!”
“We shall all pray for you,” the Abbot promised.
“Nay!” Garth shouted, grappling with all his strength against the brute lugging him to his death. “You’ll burn in hell for this, Abbot! You’re murdering an innocent! Your soul will be damned for eternity!”
But Cynthia saw the truth of the matter. No matter how Garth proclaimed his innocence, her innocence, the babe’s innocence, no matter if he shouted till his voice grew hoarse and the flames licked at his feet, the Abbot had no intention of releasing either of them. Not even the will of the people, some of whom stood weeping and moaning, some shouting in horrified protest, could alter the wretched man’s intentions. For whatever ungodly reason, the Abbot wanted them both gone, and no force on earth would sway him from his purpose.
“Your soul will rot, Abbot!” Garth snarled, throwing his head back like a wild wolf.
It was the executioner who finally silenced him. The big man gave Garth’s shoulder a rough shake and hissed, “Quiet! Look to your lady. She needs your courage.”
Garth stopped struggling and looked into Cynthia’s face. She tried to stop the tears, but they spilled over like a rain-swollen brook. Garth quieted.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as he mounted the scaffold beside her.
“Don’t be,” he murmured. “I’ve come to rescue you.”
Rescue her? How could he rescue her now? He was about to be burned at the stake beside her. Or perhaps, she thought, fresh tears blinding her, he meant her spiritual rescue. Aye, that was it. He was sacrificing himself to save her soul.
“It’s all my fault,” she choked out.
Knights of de Ware 03 - My Hero Page 29
