The Two Torcs

by Debbie Viguié

  “Och, it’s cold out there, Princess!”

  “I went last time.”

  “I know.” Chastity rubbed her hands together, moving toward the fire.

  Marian moved close. “Any word?”

  “About what?”

  Marian hesitated. “My uncle.”

  “Not a peep. No news either way.”

  “Damn.” Marian’s voice came out a growl.

  Chastity laid a hand on her shoulder. “No news isn’t bad news.”

  “Crusading armies send word back when they land. That’s what kings do.”

  “Doesn’t mean he didn’t land.”

  “Then what does it mean?” she snapped angrily.

  Chastity stepped back and Marian felt the small distance like a dash of ice water.

  A blossom of shame opened inside her. She sighed, clearing the tightness in her chest with the deep breath.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Chastity shrugged. “I know it’s tough for you, Princess. Even without John and the Sheriff and their mischief, I know it’s hard.”

  Marian had no words. None. She turned away so that Chastity wouldn’t see the despair in her eyes. She missed her uncle more than she ever thought she could miss anyone, and in these moments—the quiet moments—her missing him turned from melancholy to anger and back again.

  It was exhausting.

  “Be strong and of good faith,” he had said. “I will return.”

  The rightful king’s last words directly to her.

  Uncle Richard, you had no idea what you were leaving me to face.

  She knew deep in her gut that none of the messengers she’d sent had made it through. Yet there had to be a way to reach Richard.

  If he’s even still alive.

  The thought came unbidden to her, filling her with an instant sense of terror. She prayed every night for his safety, sometimes weeping into the wee hours of the morning with the fervency of her prayers.

  He wasn’t the only one she prayed for. She also prayed for her cohorts, those who had donned the mantle of the Hood to try to spoil King John’s plans. Particularly for Robin. Then she prayed for the children of the nobles, the young ones who had been stolen to keep their parents in line. The children nobody could find.

  “Still no word on where they might have taken the little ones?” Marian asked, knowing already what the answer would be. If Chastity had such news, it would have been the first thing from her lips.

  “No,” the young woman admitted. “No one seems to have any idea. They can’t be in the castle, though. There’s not been food leaving the kitchens unaccounted for.”

  Marian took a deep breath. “You don’t think he’s killed them, do you?”

  She waited for an outburst from Chastity, a reassurance that even John wasn’t that stupid or heartless. It never came, and Marian turned to look at her friend.

  Chastity had gone pale.

  “I don’t know, milady.” The formality in her tone told Marian everything she needed to know.

  “You think he has.”

  “I pray he hasn’t.”

  “As do I. Let us think, though. If he has kept them alive, and they are not here, where would they have been moved to?”

  “Somewhere secure, where they couldn’t escape and no one could find them. There’d have to be soldiers with them, and at least a few servants to handle the cooking and the like.”

  Marian nodded. “Have any servants gone missing since the children were taken?”

  Chastity frowned. “I cannot say for certain. I know there are a few I haven’t seen in a while, but no one moves about the castle as freely these days, so that may mean nothing. I will find out, though.”

  “It would be a start, at least. If we could find the children and rescue them, put them somewhere safe, then maybe we could convince the nobles to unite against John.”

  “It’s a lovely plan, Princess. It might even work if…”

  She trailed off and Marian nodded.

  “Yes, if…”

  If the children are still alive.

  She folded her arms across herself, seeking to keep out the cold that had nothing to do with the weather raging outside. She thought of those little ones, hungry, frightened, possibly even freezing to death somewhere if they were still wearing only the clothes they had on when they were seized. Even if John hadn’t killed them, it was possible the pox had, or that this cursed winter would soon enough.

  * * *

  Snow melted under the three-dozen men who knelt in the courtyard of the monastery. They curled into themselves, arms pulled close to their bodies, legs folded tightly under them. Numb fingers moved stiffly, painfully over worn knots in prayer ropes. The cold numbed their legs, their hands, their faces, and the slickly razored patch of scalp in the center of their tonsures.

  The cardinal stood in front of them, watching the wisps of their breath as they prayed. The cold wiped away the distraction of the world, giving an overwhelming physical discomfort that corralled the mind into a place where prayer could be truly transcendental. God could be found there, in the icy wind and the bitter temperature. The cold could also kill a man, without him realizing it.

  He watched their breath—especially Brother Kincannon, the thinnest of the monks there. As his body grew colder inside his breath would show less and less. If it disappeared, then the man might not live through the night.

  Kincannon’s breath was a near transparent curl, like that of wood shaved from a joist or joint by a carpenter.

  Moving his eyes along the rows of brown-robed monks, the cardinal counted one more time and, satisfied with his tally, he clapped his hands together, breaking the hum of murmured prayers with a sharp crack.

  His palms tingled painfully afterward.

  One by one the monks all looked up, some jumping as if they’d been struck, others moving slowly, as if rousing from a deep sleep.

  “Rise and return inside,” he said briskly. “Food has been laid out, and warm mead to revive your insides. You have dined with Christ Almighty, now sup with each other in good fellowship, cleansed and braced by this exercise.”

  They rose, the younger and sturdier helping their elders, as was the way of the order. In small groups they filed past him, some rushing forward into the halls of the monastery. One monk in particular waited toward the end of the line. He seemed not to feel the cold as sharply, given the breadth of his middle and his stoutness of limb.

  The cardinal tilted his chin up, indicating to the fat friar that he should wait. As the door shut behind the last of the line, the monk spoke.

  “Yes?”

  The cardinal smiled, even though the cold air made his teeth hurt.

  “Surely the mighty Tuck isn’t cold.”

  Friar Tuck sniffed. “Not at all, but you said there was warm mead.”

  “There will be enough” the cardinal reassured him. “I won’t make you tarry long.”

  “Is there trouble? Something from the castle?”

  The cardinal shook his head. “Nothing from there… but we are missing a brother.”

  Friar Tuck nodded. “Stephen. He’s been gone since mid-morn.”

  “Which one is Stephen?”

  Chubby fingers waved in front of Tuck’s face. “The one with the eyes.”

  “Ahhhh… where is he?”

  “Not in the cold praying. Maybe he is inside, with the mead.”

  The cardinal said nothing.

  Friar Tuck touched his arm. “Is there a reason for worry, Francis?”

  The cardinal shook his head. “No, not yet. Check his cell and the infirmary. He may be sick from this weather.”

  “He’s good stock, but it’s possible.”

  “I pray he is,” the cardinal said, then he paused. “I have a bad feeling. A sense of dread in my stomach.”

  “Something you ate?” Tuck offered.

  “I’ve been fasting for God’s wisdom for the last three days.”

  A frown twisted the friar’s
face. “I hate fasting.”

  “I’m surprised you remember what it’s like.”

  Tuck grimaced. “Maybe the boy left because of your sharp wit.”

  * * *

  Stephen rolled his large green eyes from side to side as he knelt, trying to watch the man in the pitch-black armor and still look at the woman in front of him. Behind her loomed the witchstone. The ancient marker was haunted, cursed even. If his hands and legs hadn’t been tied tight, he would have scrambled to his feet and run away.

  The man was still at his back, just on the edge of his vision if he wrenched his neck all the way around, but the pain that shot up into his temple from the strain made him impossible to see clearly. Instead he was simply a sinister black streak—a shadow, a haint that hovered just past where he could see.

  Something warm and moist touched his face.

  His head jerked, causing the woman’s fingertips to skim along his cheek and across his mouth. He recoiled as far as his bonds would let him, sucking sharply inward at the pool of spittle that sloshed out around the knotted rope between his teeth. The edge of her nail just nicked the juncture of his lips, right above the hemp, stretched taut and so very thin that the skin split in a sharp burning pain—so much more than it should have. It made his left eye twitch and stutter.

  The taste of raw iron bloomed across his tongue. The woman kneeling before him looked over his head.

  “Let’s take that silly rope out of his mouth.”

  A blow to the back of his head drove it forward, his chin crashing into his own breastbone, his teeth grinding down on the knot. They were going to break, crack, and splinter into shards that would be driven deep into his gums, leaving them bloody ruins. His would be the mouth of a gargoyle.

  Something hard dug under the rope where it went around his skull, tearing hair out as it pushed and shoved. The gag was yanked deeper into his mouth, his lip tearing further at the cut and his jaw cracking as the joint of it slipped in its mooring, not quite dislocating but pulling apart, straining the tendons in a punch of hot pain that rolled from his chin to his temple and back again.

  Tears streamed down his face and he couldn’t see anything, his eyes shut so tightly they pulsed red behind their lids with each hammering heartbeat.

  He felt his mind begin to drift in the fog of intense, unrelenting pain. Another jerk, and the pressure disappeared.

  The ends of the rope fell around his face. They were smooth, cut by something sharp. The woman reached up and tugged gently, pulling the rope from his mouth. The relief that washed over him made his head spin.

  She lifted his chin with a soft finger. “Better?”

  He moved his jaw, trying to get it to slip back, to feel right. It was better. The blinding pain faded to a persistent, throbbing ache.

  He nodded as he swallowed bloody spit.

  “Good.” A scrap of cloth embroidered with a star pattern covered her hand. She moved it to the corner of his mouth, dabbing at it. “There, there, you should be right as rain by morning.”

  He stared at her, watching as she pulled away the cloth. She studied it for a moment, as if considering the wide splotch of his blood that stained it. Carefully, she tucked the stained cloth into the bodice of her gown. The sight of her fingers slipping under the hem and between pale mounds of her breasts moved him, and he hardened under his robes.

  The pain in his mouth slipped his mind.

  “What’s your name?”

  He swallowed. Her face looked so kind, so full of concern.

  “It’s Stephen, Lady Longstride.”

  Her eyebrow arched up. “You know me?”

  He nodded. “My family helps with your orchard harvest every autumn. I have seen you every year of my life… until the last one.”

  Her shoulders moved back, lifting her chest. “You looked at me every year? Watching me as I toured the groves while you worked?”

  He turned his face away, cheeks burning as he flushed.

  “I did. It’s why I was sent to service.”

  Sharp fingernails scratched the front of his robe, tracing down his stomach and swirling around the hardness in his lap. “So you are new to the church?”

  He nodded.

  Glynna Longstride looked over his head at the man who still stood behind him.

  “He’s a baby monk. He will know nothing.”

  “The long night is coming. We will not get another chance and I won’t risk it.” The voice growled behind him. “He knows something. It may be piss in a bucket, but it can be a start.”

  Glynna sighed and adjusted herself, one hand on her thigh, one on the swollen stomach that stretched from her otherwise lithe frame. Settled, her eyes focused on him again.

  “Our dear Sheriff of Nottingham believes you own knowledge we need,” she said to the monk. “Is that true?”

  He scooted forward. The movement pulled on his bound hands, making the pain in them flare, and then ease as he shifted.

  “I know nothing, milady, nothing at all. I barely know my way from one end of the monastery to the other.”

  “Ask him about the Relic Grimoire,” the Sheriff prodded.

  Glynna snarled. With seeming effort she pushed it aside and smiled.

  “We are looking for a book, Stephen,” she said. “A specific book.”

  “We have books.”

  “This would be a book someone is trying to keep out of sight. We think it has been hidden in the monastery—so think, has anyone acted differently?”

  “No ma’am, not since Bishop Montoya…”

  The growl from behind cut him short. “Forget that idiot.”

  Glynna Longstride snapped her fingers.

  “You’re a bright young man,” she said to Stephen. Her hands slid over her stomach to her breasts. She cupped them, lifting them slightly. The collar of her blouse pulled lower, and even more of her cleavage rose to his sight. “You pay attention to things around you.”

  He licked his lips, and tasted blood.

  “Tell me who at the monastery shares in the conspiracy?”

  “I swear on my own life,” he pleaded, “I know nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  A sly smile pulled her mouth sideways and her eyes went dark and hooded. “Good.” Reaching into her blouse, she pulled out the handkerchief and shook it out. The blood had spread, turning almost the entire cloth a dull brownish red. It was far more blood than had been dabbed away from his mouth. Lady Longstride lifted the cloth to her face slowly.

  Every inch it rose, dread stacked in his stomach like stones growing in size, until he couldn’t breathe, feeling as if the stack had invaded his throat from inside him.

  The bloody cloth hovered, only a breath away from her mouth. Her tongue, bright pink and longer than it should have been, lashed out, brushing against the cloth, lapping at the blood.

  Lapping at his blood.

  Lady Longstride swallowed, her throat working as if she’d taken a long draught of liquid—more than a mouthful, far more than a lick. She looked at him with intensity and her lips parted, her voice coming in a husky whisper. “Bind to me, lash to me, cleave to me. Mine to take. Mine to own. Mine to possess.” Shoving a wad of the bloody cloth into her mouth she began to suckle it, drawing against it with a heave of chest and a fluttering of eyes.

  Obscene sounds came from her—vulgar noise as she shifted and suckled harder. Stephen’s bowels went to water with terror. She heaved and sighed around the mouthful of cloth with muffled squeals and moans, and he could feel it hot and moist against his face, the tiny droplets of her breath freezing on his cheek.

  She lurched at him, flinging herself forward, her thick blonde hair whipped across his face and she lay against him for a long moment, breathing hard.

  He could smell her. She was sour, acrid, like a poison.

  “Are you quite done?” The Sheriff spoke from above them.

  Slowly, Lady Longstride pushed back, kneeling in the snow. She shook he
r hair back and looked up. Stephen couldn’t take his eyes off her. A tiny corner of the cloth stuck out from lips that looked swollen, engorged. She reached up and pulled it, the soaking cloth slipping from tightly pressed lips.

  It came out completely clean.

  Her eyes locked with his.

  Her mouth opened.

  “Mine to destroy.”

  For a long moment nothing happened, save for his heart trying to beat its way from his chest.

  Then the burning started.

  It grew in his calves, warming, heating, then boiling. It rose, scorching as it did the blood in his veins. Panic made his head go fuzzy.

  Hands clamped on his shoulder. Glynna shook him.

  “Tell me who conspires to hide the book!” she hissed in his face, her voice rising, her breath like hot copper.

  The heat climbed inside him and he could feel the things that made him—the organs and the viscera—cooking, turning hard and rubbery or soft and chewy. It hurt, oh God, it hurt so much.

  God.

  Christ.

  Mary.

  “Tell me!” She shook him again and the heat climbed another notch.

  He was abandoned. Left to die at the hands of his obsession. God had turned His face. Christ had closed his eyes. Mary had walked away from him.

  Only Lady Glynna Longstride was near.

  If he told her, maybe she would spare him, save him, stop this pain.

  His heart lay like cinder in the furnace of his chest.

  The church had left him to Hell.

  The fire lapped at his throat as he spoke, crying out through his panic.

  “The cardinal,” he said. “The cardinal and Brother Tuck. They talk in low voices and keep to themselves.”

  Lady Longstride smiled and laid her hands on each side of his face. The fire inside him lessened, falling away, giving him respite.

  “Thank you, Stephen. You are a good boy.”

  As he began to open his mouth to say that he loved her, she spat in his eyes and dropped her hands away.

  Instantly he went blind, screaming as the fire in his blood howled its way to his brain.

  CHAPTER THREE