Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  The peddler opened his eyes and met Rainulf’s gaze. A strange look passed over his face. He muttered something unintelligible.

  “What’s he saying?” Thomas asked.

  “I’ve no idea, but I don’t like this. This cur used to follow Corliss around. For all I know, he’s...” Captured her? Cut her up? Then what was he doing here? He was mad, that’s what—and clearly hurt.

  Rad seemed agitated. He tried to sit up, but grimaced and collapsed again.

  Rainulf shook him. “What happened? Where’s Corliss?” Rad’s eyes opened at the mention of her name. “I’ll kill you if you’ve hurt her.” He shook him harder. “Rad! Rad!”

  “P-Pigot,” the peddler gasped.

  “What’s that?” asked Brad. “Pigot?”

  Rad nodded furiously, and then his eyes rolled up and he slumped heavily to the ground. His chest still rose and fell, shakily; he wasn’t dead quite yet.

  Brad regarded the unconscious peddler with a furrowed brow. “Was he saying that’s what his name is? Pigot?”

  “I think so,” Rainulf said. “Why?”

  “It’s a Saxon name,” explained the young scholar. “Means speckled.”

  Rainulf pointed to Rad’s ravaged face. “I think he qualifies.”

  “I suppose,” Brad said. “But usually that’s what they call you if you’re covered with freckles.”

  Freckles... A face materialized in Rainulf’s mind—milk white and showered with hundreds of bright red freckles. He saw the pale, knowing eyes, the thin smile...

  “Like that surgeon,” Brad offered. “What’s his—”

  “Will Geary.” Rainulf stood, raking his fingers through his hair.

  Was it possible? He recalled the first time he’d seen Will, standing in the doorway of Burnell’s Tavern, his surgical bag in his hand. It’s my fault you got involved in this mess in the first place, Will had told him later. I’m the one who sent you to Cuxham. That was true. If it weren’t for Will, he would never even have known the little village existed.

  Rainulf had always found it vaguely troubling that Will sold his services to the likes of Roger Foliot—a man who thought nothing of smashing a boy’s legs with a mallet. So I set the legs, Will had told him over a tankard of ale, and then I ate my fill of stag and turnips and went on my way...

  He sends for me, when he needs me.

  “Sweet Jesus...”

  “Magister?” Thomas began. “What’s the—”

  “You and Brad stay here,” Rainulf commanded. “Tend to Rad.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Pennyfarthing Street. If I’m not back by nightfall, send for the sheriff.”

  * * *

  Corliss caught fleeting glimpses of Will through the back door as he harnessed two horses to a cart. Reentering the shop, he substituted his tunic for the leather apron, then lifted one of the coffins and brought it out back, laying it on the bed of the cart.

  No...

  “Will, don’t do this,” she said as he snatched a roll of bandages from the cupboard.

  “Oh, it’s ‘Will’ again, is it?” He tore a strip of linen from the roll and stuffed it into her mouth, then wound a second strip around her head to hold it in place, and tied it off.

  Unlatching the leather restraints from her hands, he tied them behind her with another length of bandage, then released her feet.

  “Let’s go.” He pulled her off the table and dragged her by her tunic toward the back door.

  As she staggered along behind him, she raised her bound hands to the back of her belt, shifting it to the side until the little pouch, which had hung in front, was within reach. Loosening its drawstring with quivering fingers, she fumbled inside it for the little reliquary.

  “Come on!” He jerked her toward the back door, not noticing when she let the small silver box drop from her fingers into the sawdust.

  He hauled her into the cart and shoved her into the coffin, grinning when she began to kick and thrash. “Get used to it. ‘Twill be your permanent home soon.” He lowered the lid, and everything went black. Presently she heard hammering all around the edge of the lid, as he nailed it shut.

  The sense of confinement overwhelmed her; the gag felt suffocating. Alone and bound in the dark confines of the narrow box, she broke out in a sweat. When she heard the horses’ hoofbeats and felt the cart move, rumbling and rocking over the rutted ground, she began to tremble uncontrollably.

  * * *

  Rainulf entered the surgical shop through the back door, which stood open. With a sense of dread he approached the big oaken table, lit by an overhead lantern, a sinister array of surgical tools laid out next to it. One of them was a small, curved knife, its blade stained crimson. There were drops of blood on the table itself, where a head would have been. He closed his eyes, straining for composure.

  It might not be Corliss’s blood. She might never have set foot in this place.

  Turning around, he scanned the rest of the shop, seeing nothing of importance... until his gaze lit on something glimmering in the sawdust near the open doorway. He didn’t recognize it until he was kneeling over it; he crossed himself before he lifted it.

  Rainulf’s chest grew tight as he cradled the little reliquary in his hand. She wanted me to know she’d been here. He closed his fist around the tiny silver box, his gaze on that monstrous, bloodstained table with its dangling leather straps. And that she’s still alive.

  Chapter 20

  Corliss was drenched in sweat by the time the cart rattled to a halt. She felt Will jump to the ground; heard a series of creaks as he pried open the lid of the coffin.

  The bright afternoon sun made her eyes snap shut. He grabbed her by her tunic and yanked her up, hauling her unceremoniously out of the coffin and off the cart.

  “Stand up!”

  Her legs wobbled beneath her. She felt a sharp prick of pain beneath her chin and opened her eyes to find his big knife poised there.

  “Walk!” He shifted the knife to her back and prodded her with it in the direction of the building looming over them: an L-shaped stone hall over an undercroft, the whole roofed in thatch. Sir Roger Foliot’s manor house, and the grandest structure in Cuxham. While she’d lived in this village, she’d stood in awe of it. Yet now, as Will hurried her up the exterior staircase to the raised hall, glancing furtively over his shoulder, it struck her as small and humble—if undeniably menacing.

  Once inside the hall, she struggled to orient herself in the dim light from the narrow windows. The long part of the L was the main hall, separated from the short section by a partition of newer stone, fitted with a heavy door. Sir Roger’s solar lay beyond that door. When he’d had the partition built, shortly after inheriting this manor from his sire, there’d been much speculation as to why he should feel the need to keep his sleeping quarters so private. The bruised faces and harrowing tales of his bed partners had provided all the answer needed.

  Hugh Hest, Sir Roger’s reeve and husband to her friend Ella, looked up from the high table at the opposite end of the hall from the solar. He swore under his breath as he took in Will, with his knife, and her, bound and gagged. Setting down his stylus—for he’d been writing on a wax tablet—he rose slowly.

  “Rent time?” asked Will with oily calm.

  Hugh nodded. Only then did Corliss notice the vast array of goods spread out on the table: baskets of eggs, stacks of hides, cheeses, dried meats, bunches of candles, half a dozen dead fowl, and numerous linen-wrapped bundles containing God knew what. Against the walls were heaped huge sacks of grain, malt, and flour.

  Will jerked his head toward the door to the solar. “Is he in there?”

  “Sir Roger? Nay, he’s down at the mill, talking to—”

  “Do you have the key to that door?” Pigot demanded.

  Corliss implored Hugh with her eyes. Don’t do this...Don’t go along with him. You’re a decent man.

  Hugh hesitated. Will brought the blade to her scarred throat and pressed; sh
e winced. “I said, do you have the—”

  “Aye!” Hugh produced a key ring and circled the table. “Just don’t hurt her.”

  Will chuckled as he dragged Corliss by her sleeve to the door of the solar. Opening it, he thrust her inside. She stumbled and fell in the rushes.

  “Lock it!” Will ordered Hugh. She heard the snick of the key in the lock, and then Will’s muffled voice through the heavy door: “Fetch Sir Roger and bring him back here. Hurry!”

  Corliss’s gaze immediately flew to the chamber’s single shuttered window, but her spirits plummeted when she found it to be a two-light, like those in the main hall: a pointed arch bisected by a stone midshaft, both openings far too narrow for her to fit through, even if she were willing to break a leg on landing. There were no other doors or openings to be seen.

  With her hands bound behind her, the simple act of standing became an awkward maneuver. Once on her feet, she gave the dim chamber a quick inspection, finding it surprisingly ornate, given the rustic surroundings. Scarlet brocade curtains enclosed the mammoth bed. Gilt crosses shared wall space with tapestries depicting scenes of the basest sensual depravity. She’d seen obscene artwork before—the scholars of Oxford maintained a lively clandestine commerce in the stuff—but never anything as perverted as this.

  An illuminated book lay open on a chest, and she approached it with a certain sordid curiosity. One whole page was taken up with an intricately detailed painting featuring naked men and women being tortured in most brutal and imaginative ways by horned demons. She noticed the writhing flames, and realized that this was a particularly graphic illustration of the torments of hell.

  Something thunked against the window shutters.

  Corliss approached the window slowly, prepared for anything. There was a pause, and then came a second thunk, as of something small striking the wooden slats. Turning her back to the window, she managed to push one of the shutters open. When she turned back around and looked through, she spied Hugh Hest on the lawn below, his arm in throwing position. He saw her, and a look of relief swept across his face. He dropped the pebble he’d been holding and wrested a key from the ring on his belt. Holding it up, he pantomimed throwing it.

  The key to the solar? He was a decent man! She nodded furiously—Yes! Yes!—and backed away from the window. He threw the key, which soared in a perfect arc to land in the rushes at her feet. When she looked through the window again, he’d turned and was heading away from her—toward the mill... and Roger Foliot. He would be helpful only up to a point, she realized—the point at which he himself would be at risk. But any help was better than no help at all, and she was immensely grateful for it.

  Squatting down, she probed blindly in the rushes until she located the key, which she slipped into her pouch, still hanging on the back of her belt. Then she rose and conducted a swift, behind-the-back search of the contents of Sir Roger’s chests and cupboards until, at last, she found what she’d been looking for: his razor.

  Cutting through the linen bandages securing her wrists was harder than she’d thought it would be: her fingers had no mobility, and her thumbs were all but useless. But after long minutes of desperate sawing, the bindings came loose, and her hands were free! Sliding the razor beneath the gag, she sliced it off and tossed it aside, rubbing her stiff and aching jaw.

  She moved her pouch to the front of her belt, slipped the razor into it, and retrieved the key. Biting her lip, she approached the door, crossed herself, and gingerly inserted the key in the lock. The metallic click sounded very loud in her ears, but when she heard nothing from the other side of the door, she slowly—oh, so slowly—opened it.

  When it was open wide enough for her to poke her head through, she did. Will stood at the high table, his back to her, idly inspecting the various bundles. Would he hear her if she left the solar? Glancing down at the rushes, she saw that they looked fresh; most likely they’d crackle underfoot. She didn’t dare try to walk through them.

  Will pressed his big knife to one of the bundles and sliced it open; dried beans spilled out, rattling loudly as they flowed over the table and onto the floor. He chuckled and took the knife to a second bundle. Corliss held her breath. When the blade pierced the linen, she left the solar, closing the door behind her; the waterfall of beans covered the noise she made. He would see her, however, were she to make a dash for the door—and then he’d slice her open.

  A mountain of huge sacks was piled next to her against the wall. Will slit open another bundle; as its contents exploded noisily, she took four steps toward the sacks. He sighed and scratched his neck with the tip of the big knife, turning toward her as he did. Her heart seized up as she slid down behind the nearest sack. Please, God, don’t let him see me.

  Evidently he hadn’t, for he merely sighed again and began pacing the main hall, tapping the knife against his thigh as he waited for Hugh to return with Sir Roger.

  * * *

  “Short hair and chausses?” gasped Roger Foliot as he heaved his obese form up the outer staircase of his house, his yapping dog held tightly in his arms. Hugh had never seen him move so fast. The prospect of finally getting his hands on Constance had lit a fire under the randy old pig. Hugh hoped with all his heart that she had managed to escape. The notion of her subjected to Sir Roger’s depraved lust filled him with revulsion. And God knew what Ella would do if she thought he’d delivered her friend into Sir Roger’s hands—probably exile him permanently from her bed.

  “Aye,” Hugh replied as he followed Sir Roger up the stairs. “I take it she disguised herself as a male to avoid capture.”

  The fat knight chuckled. “She was always a clever bitch.” Detinée yelped. “Not you, my dear. And you say her face is intact.”

  “So it seems.”

  At the top of the stairs, Sir Roger turned and lowered his voice. “You see? Pigot spared her face, after all. He did as I told him because he fears and respects—”

  “For God’s sake,” Hugh whispered, “don’t call the man Pigot to his face.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.”

  You would be if you had any sense. Sir Roger strode into the hall, Hugh behind him, and looked around, scratching Detinée on the head. Presently, Pigot emerged from the shadows, holding that huge, bloody knife of his.

  “So,” Sir Roger began, “you’ve brought her back.”

  “I have,” the surgeon replied. “You owe me a pound sterling.”

  “You’ll get your money,” said the knight as he crossed to the solar. “But first I have to see her. Got to make sure I’m getting what I pay for.” He inserted his own key in the lock and frowned. “It’s unlocked. What’s this, Hugh? I thought you said you locked her in.”

  “I did,” Hugh said carefully. “I can’t imagine...” He shrugged, secretly overjoyed. She did it! She got out!

  Roger Foliot opened the door and stepped into the solar, Hugh right behind; Pigot waited outside. “Constance?” He turned around in the big chamber, frowning. The little dog leapt from his arms and darted under the bed. Its’ master’s eyes grew wide. “Is that where you’ve hidden yourself?” Hugh watched in disgust as Sir Roger got down on his hands and knees and peered under the bed. “Shit!” He glared at Hugh, his face a deep, livid purple. “Where is she?”

  “I...”

  “Help me up, damn you!”

  Groaning, Hugh took the plump hands offered to him and hauled Sir Roger up. As soon as he’d gained his feet, he pushed Hugh aside to confront the surgeon, standing in the doorway wearing an expression of crazed bewilderment.

  Uh-oh, thought Hugh, taking in Pigot’s frigid eyes and the white-knuckled grip with which he held his knife.

  The fat knight planted his hands on his hips and thrust out his massive chest. “All right. Where is she?”

  Pigot’s piercing gaze scanned the room; a muscle jumped in his jaw.

  “I said where is she?” Sir Roger demanded.

  The answer was menacingly soft: “I don’t know.”

/>   “Rubbish! You’ve spirited her away. You want her for yourself, after all. Well, she’s not yours—she’s mine! Bought and paid for. So hand her over.”

  “Not quite bought and paid for,” Geary said quietly through a clenched jaw. “You still owe me a pound.”

  “Hah!” Sir Roger turned to Hugh, his expression one of amused outrage. “Will you listen to the man? He thinks I owe him money!” Turning, he indicated the empty solar with a sweep of his huge arm. “For what? I don’t see anything here worth paying for, do you?”

  “You’ll fetch her back,” Pigot said. “She can’t have gotten far. And even if you don’t, you still owe me. I brought her back. Your reeve will attest to that.”

  Sir Roger shook his head. “Oh, no, Pigot. I don’t pay until I’ve got her. You’ve got to go fetch her back.”

  “What did you call—”

  “You’ll fetch her back... Pigot. And you’ll return her to me, with her face whole, or I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” the surgeon growled as he grabbed Sir Roger by the hair and circled behind him, the big knife at his throat. “You’ll what, you fat, whining bag of entrails?”

  Sir Roger’s face grew chalk white. His eyes, half buried in folds of fat, sought out Hugh’s. “Help me, Hugh. Get this maniac off me. Please!”

  A strange sense of tranquility overtook Hugh. He spread his hands wide, allowing himself a small smile. “I don’t seem to have a weapon handy, Sir Roger. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “Then talk to him, for God’s sake!”

  “Can’t really think of anything to say. Sorry.”

  Pigot snickered and pressed the knife further into the fleshy throat. “For nine years I’ve sold my services to you, you great, worthless, maggoty bucket of lard. I’ve put up with you for one reason and one reason only—money. If there’s no money to be had from you, your existence no longer serves a purpose.” His fist tightened around the handle of the knife.

  “No!” wailed Sir Roger, furiously crossing himself. “I need to make confession! I can’t die without absolution! I’ll go to hell!”