Daring Damsels

by Domning, Denise

  He will be long gone, she thought as she burst through the doorway. But to her surprise, he stood just down the corridor, speaking with a pair of guards. His earnest expression should have alerted her to the seriousness of his conversation, but Bria was too hurt to notice anything but the pain inside her.

  She marched up to him. “I deserve answers,” she said.

  He turned to her, shock on his face. Then his eyes darkened. “You aren’t going to make this easy, are you?”

  “Easy?” she demanded, rage knotting her fists. “I’ll make it as easy for you as you are for me.”

  He seized her arm in a tight hold and dragged her down the hallway, turning his head from this door to that. Finally, he settled on a room and opened the door. It was empty and dark. He propelled her inside with a shove.

  Bria almost fell to her knees, but caught her balance. He closed the door, sealing them in the darkness. There was complete and utter silence between them for a long moment. Bria could hear only her own heavy breathing.

  “What answers would you like?” Terran demanded.

  “Why? Why are you doing this?” Bria asked, trying desperately to keep her voice even.

  “I told you. You are a failure as my wife.”

  “What have I done?” she implored, angry at herself for sounding so desperate.

  “Your consorting with my enemy is intolerable,” he retorted.

  “I am not consorting!” Bria felt tears burning in her eyes.

  “Then tell me where you go in the middle of the night. Tell me who you meet.”

  “I have never lied to you, Terran.”

  “Omission is just as much a lie,” he snapped. “You plot against me with this criminal.”

  “No,” she whispered, stepping toward his outline in the gloom. “I try to help you. Your people are living in fear –”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “But you don’t listen! How can you run a castle if your people starve in the winter? Who will plow your fields then? Who will –”

  “Enough!” The word resonated through the room. “Don’t do this, Bria, please. Just leave.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “The choice isn’t yours to make,” Terran answered.

  The tears burning her eyes ran over her cheeks. “Why save me to destroy me?”

  “You aren’t professing love, are you?”

  “And if I am?”

  He turned away before he answered. “I would pity you. Kathryn satisfies my physical needs. And my heart... belongs to Odella.”

  Bria’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces. How could she have mistaken this cold, uncaring person for a man who loved her?

  “Then why did you make love to me?” she cried.

  There was silence before he finally said, “I thought to prove you were a whore. Imagine my surprise to find you a virgin.”

  Bria’s entire body shook, trembling like a leaf being blown about in a violent wind, and she couldn’t hold back a sob.

  “Bria.” The whispered tenderness in his voice confused her. “Why do you make me hurt you like this? Just go.”

  Bria didn’t understand. She didn’t want to understand the deceitful treachery behind Terran’s actions. How could she have been so wrong about him?

  She took a teetering step backward, her world blurring before her eyes, before whirling and running out of the room.

  Terran had never cared about the ledgers, but now he immersed himself in the harvest tallies. He frowned. The accursed tallies weren’t making sense to him. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the entries again, but his thoughts weren’t focused on the tally lines scribbled on the parchment before him. Where could he start?

  How can I discover who poisoned Bria? His heart told him to start with Kenric. Bria wouldn’t lie. But his mind argued there was no reason for Kenric to poison Bria or Odella.

  No matter how hard he tried to focus his mind on something else, he couldn’t get the image of Bria’s tearful face from his mind. He’d wondered if perhaps she might be glad to leave him. But he’d been wrong. Very wrong. He knew that now.

  Nonetheless, he did what had to be done. He had to get her out of the way in order to figure out what was going on. He couldn’t risk her life. He couldn’t risk someone’s harming her again.

  But now his mind was refusing to focus on the job at hand.

  He shook his head firmly, gazing at the small lines and tallies on the page beside the names of the peasants and merchants and farmers who lived under his rule. They meant nothing to him, not compared to Bria.

  Terran slammed the book closed and rose from the table, turning to head out the door. He hurried down the hall toward the main balcony. I hope I’m not too late. I hope I can get there in time, just see her once more so I can concentrate on what I have to do. With each step the urgency grew. He had to see her. He had to assure himself that she’d be all right. He was almost running as he reached the balcony which overlooked the courtyard. He placed his palms on the edge of the railing, only to see the Delaney procession riding away in the distance.

  He couldn’t see Bria. With this thought came an anguish he’d never known. His wife was riding away from him, and he’d driven her away. His chest constricted painfully, and he bowed his head. She was gone.

  It’s the only way, he thought, struggling to convince himself he’d done the right thing. The only way to keep her safe. When it was all over, he would get her back. He’d make it right. He had to.

  Thunder sounded in the distance, and he lifted his head to see dark black clouds churning in the sky just in front of the procession.

  Soaked and numb, Bria sat before the hearth in her room. They had not reached Castle Delaney before the downpour began and had been unable to avoid the torrential wall of rain. The flames snapped and danced, their movements reflected in her eyes, but she didn’t see them.

  She shivered in her wet clothing. Her maidservant Deb had suggested she change, but she’d refused. They were the last thing that held the memory of Terran’s touch.

  Someone hung a warm, dry blanket about her shoulders, but she didn’t look up.

  “Bria.” Her father knelt before her.

  Bria shifted her eyes to him, hoping to find comfort in his presence. But he wasn’t Terran, and only Terran could stop the pain burning in her chest. She turned her gaze back to the fire.

  “We can petition the king for an annulment. We’ll get the dowry back,” he vowed. “That cur shall have none of your coin.”

  Bria almost laughed. As if she cared about the dowry.

  Her father lifted a hand to stroke her wet hair. “Was it so horrible for you, darling?”

  “Horrible?” she asked quietly. “No, Father.” She blinked at the tears filling her eyes. “Curse me for a fool,” she said, and lifted a trembling hand to swipe at a lone tear that ran down her cheek. “I fell in love with him.”

  That night Bria slept a barren sleep, her mind empty of dreams, her soul more dead than alive. By the time she woke the next day, it was late afternoon. She moved through the halls like a specter, pale, hauntingly slow. Peasants stopped to look at her and shake their heads when they thought she wasn’t looking. She frowned. He had done this to her. Terran had made her an object of sympathy.

  But she knew she was stronger than that. Then why didn’t she have the strength of spirit to prove it? Why couldn’t she be better than this phantom who walked the halls?

  Without realizing where she was heading, Bria found herself sitting beneath the tree near the empty tilting yard. She pulled out stalks of grass one at a time, shredding each in her slender fingers, and then moving on to the next.

  She didn’t notice the passage of time, didn’t notice the sun dipping lower and lower in the distance.

  A sword dropped abruptly into her lap, as if falling from the heavens. She stared down at the leather handle for a long moment before lifting her gaze skyward to find her grandfather standing over her.

  �
�The people need the Midnight Shadow,” he said, “now more than ever.”

  Bria pushed the weapon from her lap. “I’m not worthy to be the Midnight Shadow.”

  “You’ve been wounded by your enemy and you just sit there, letting the wound kill you.”

  Bria shook her head. “It’s not like that.”

  “Isn’t it?” Harry knelt beside her.

  “I don’t have the spirit to be the Midnight Shadow.”

  “So he killed that, too, did he?” Harry shook his head. “And who will save those people? Do you think this is what Garret would have wanted? Or Mary?”

  “Mary.” Bria’s head came up sharply at the thought of her friend. How selfish I’ve been. While my friend rots away in Terran’s dungeon, all I can think about is myself! I have to save Mary! Bria quickly rose to her feet. “Grandfather, Mary is alive! I spoke with her. She’s in the dungeon at Castle Knowles!”

  Harry nodded grimly. “Then you have a lot to do, don’t you?”

  When Bria reached the clearing, the moon was high and bright in the night sky. She dismounted and moved to the pond, taking a moment to look down into the calm water. She was dismayed at her wretched expression, her swollen lids, her melancholy face. But there was a new resolve returning to her eyes.

  Let everyone think I am wasting away from a loveless marriage. Let everyone think Terran treated me horribly. Let everyone pity me, she thought. I’ll be safe from their suspicions. No one will expect me to be the Midnight Shadow.

  Bria looked around, watching the shadows, waiting, making sure Kenric hadn’t set a trap. When she finally moved to retrieve her costume and sword, dark clouds had obscured the moon and the night cloaked her in nearly complete darkness. The blackness of the forest gave her courage; the stars twinkling above gave her hope. But mostly, the reborn determination within her gave her a renewed strength of spirit.

  Bria took her sword, boots, and costume and mounted her horse, leaving the memories of her poisoning behind her. She decided to move her hiding place to the bramble patch. Once there, she again became the Midnight Shadow.

  The Midnight Shadow hid in the trees near the dirt road leading to the gated entrance of Castle Knowles. She debated swimming the brackish waters of the moat surrounding the stone fortress, but quickly decided against it. She had no idea where the secret exits were built into the castle walls. She’d had no time to discover, or even ask about, their whereabouts in her few short days at the castle.

  She thought of waiting until morning, waiting until the castle gates opened to let in the flood of daily business, but there would be no shadows for her to conceal herself in, and the thought of Mary spending one more minute in that dark, horrible dungeon made her skin crawl and her heart ache.

  Bria cursed. She’d brought along a plain brown hooded cloak to disguise herself as a monk, which she now wore. But when she arrived at Castle Knowles, she was dismayed to see the portcullis lowered.

  There had to be another way in.

  Her answer came rumbling down the dirt road on four wobbly wheels, a merchant either returning very late or arriving very early. He sat atop his wagon, driving his tired horses forward with a feeble snap of their reins, pulling his covered cart behind him.

  The Midnight Shadow let the cart pass, then quickly moved behind it to push the flaps of the covering aside and clamber inside. The back of the wagon was filled with bags of spice and other foodstuffs, fabric, piles of clothing, boxes of jewelry. Two men snored softly at the front of the cart.

  Just then, the wagon hit a hole in the road and the cart bounced heavily, sending a box flying into the side of one of the sleeping men. The Midnight Shadow caught her balance and ducked down behind a pile of fabric, quickly pulling some material over her head. She heard the man curse and rustle about for a few moments before his snoring resumed. The air quickly turned hot beneath her shield of cloth, but she dared not move.

  To enter the castle thus was impetuous and dangerous. But it was the only way to free Mary.

  The wagon continued on its way, the journey seeming to take hours when only minutes had passed. The wooden wheels clattered across more wood, and she realized they’d reached the drawbridge. She heard voices, but couldn’t make out the words. The wagon stopped. She heard more voices, louder now, the words still indiscernible. Footsteps sounded nearby. Suddenly, the flaps whipped open and flickering torchlight rippled across the fabric above her head.

  One of the sleeping men grumbled, cursing the light in his eyes. Then the flaps were shut, returning her to the safety of darkness. A loud cranking sound signaled the portcullis was being raised. When the sound stopped, the wagon jerked forward, moving them into the castle. Eventually, the wagon slowed, then stopped. She started to rise, but quickly pulled the material over her head as she heard one of the sleeping men awake. The man stumbled through the wagon toward her, stepping a mere inch from her booted toes as he made his way outside.

  The driver and the newly awakened man talked outside the wagon, their voices fading into the distance as they headed away. The other man still slept, snoring quite loudly. Quickly, she slipped out of the wagon and moved to the dark shadows of a nearby wall. She scanned her surroundings, seeing she was already in the inner courtyard near the keep.

  The Midnight Shadow moved cautiously through the darkness. The moon was a sliver, its feeble light barely enough to illuminate an entire castle, let alone a disguised woman sneaking through the blackness. She pulled the monk’s hood up to hide her mask and cape as she moved slowly through the inner ward.

  At the doors of the keep, she silently eased inside. As she moved down the dark hallway, she pulled the cloak tight against her body, holding her weapon against her so when she moved it was lost in the folds of the cloak.

  Most of the castle’s occupants were asleep. She barely paused to glance inside as she passed the Great Hall. It was littered with sleeping bodies, most situated as close as possible to the hearth for the warmth it offered. Bria continued on.

  There was one other time she’d been up at this late hour at Castle Knowles -- her wedding night. She pushed the thought from her mind. She had to concentrate on Mary, not on her husband.

  She quickly found the stairway to the lower level and walked cautiously down the stairs. She remembered the route to the dungeons very well. She’d been brought this way when Kenric had interrogated her. She forced the anger and humiliation from her mind. She had to concentrate. She was in her enemy’s home. If she were to be caught...

  She couldn’t think of that. She descended into the darkness. Torchlight wavered about her. She continued on until her feet hit the dank mud of the dungeon level. Fear and excitement mingled with the anticipation of seeing her friend again. She was so close to Mary, so close to finally freeing her.

  Adrenaline pumped through her veins, heightening every one of her senses. She heard the moan of a prisoner in the distance as if he were right beside her. The first guard’s post was empty, and she continued down the small, dark hallway to the second guard’s post. She peered around the corner.

  One guard sat at a small table. His back was to her, his head bent forward. For a moment, she thought he was sleeping. Then he straightened, spit something out, and bent his head again.

  She thought of sneaking up on the guard, knocking him out with a quick strike to the back of his head with the hilt of her sword, but then realized that wasn’t the way. Bria silently removed her brown monk’s cloak and tossed it to the ground. She wanted Terran to know who had rescued Mary. She wanted him to know his enemy had infiltrated his castle. She eased her weapon from its sheath. Then she stepped forward, moving noisily out of the shadows.

  The guard turned. When he saw her, his eyes widened and his hand immediately dropped to his sheath.

  But the Midnight Shadow had the tip of her weapon against his throat before he could draw his sword. “Remove your hand from your weapon, sir,” she ordered in her deep whisper.

  The guard hesitantly removed h
is hand from the hilt of his sword, and the Midnight Shadow removed his weapon, tossing it to a far corner.

  “Now open the cell Mary is in,” the Midnight Shadow commanded in a whisper.

  The guard nodded once, careful of the tip to his throat.

  She took a step back and allowed him to rise and move down the dark corridor. He paused before Mary’s door and then unlatched it, flinging it open. “Get her out,” she commanded.

  “The prisoner isn’t in here,” the guard told her.

  “Explain,” she insisted.

  “Sheriff Kenric moved her,” he said.

  She was moved? Bria’s heart pounded furiously in her chest. Anger and frustration speared through her. She had been so close! “Where?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know,” he said softly.

  The Midnight Shadow cursed silently and shoved the guard into the cell. She shut the door and latched it, sealing him in. She moved farther into the dark dungeon, ignoring the guard’s shouts, and unlatched the other cells, freeing the prisoners. She’d need a diversion to get out of the castle in one piece. Hopefully the escaped prisoners would provide enough of a distraction to the castle guards. She bolted up the stairway, grabbing the monk’s cloak on her way. As she moved, she shoved it into a bag at her side.

  She’d been so close! She could have freed Mary. If I’d only gotten to her sooner!

  She looked up the stairway and froze. It was the way toward the solar, toward Terran’s room. Would he be sleeping? Probably. Unwanted, the image of his powerful physique draped across the bed rose in her mind. She had to see him again. She wanted to look at him just once.

  Before she had the conscious thought, she was moving up the stairs toward the solar, unable to resist the overwhelming urge.

  She knew from experience that Bradley, Terran’s squire, slept in the stables, keeping a close eye on Terran’s treasured steed. Terran slept alone. Her foot landed on the second floor. The floor where Terran was.