Will spun around. “You shut up!”
Behind him, Rad grabbed the rock, hefting it in both hands. As Will turned toward him, he slammed it into the surgeon’s midsection.
Will fell, whacking his head on the table and hitting the floor with a grunt. Rad doubled over, clutching his bleeding stomach. Shaking his head, Will groped in the sawdust for his knife. Corliss knew Rad didn’t have a chance. No match for Will to begin with, he was further weakened by his injury.
“Leave, Rad!” she screamed. “Go!”
Rad nodded as he struggled to stand up. “I’ll g-get—”
“Just go!”
He clambered out the window, leaving it smeared with blood. Will, one hand cradling his head, the other clutching the knife, rose unsteadily to his feet. “Damn.” He lurched to the window and peered out. Rad’s retreating footfalls were soon absorbed by the boisterous street noise.
Will, his breathing labored, stood with his back to her for a few moments. “Can’t stay here now,” he muttered. “Got to get you to Cuxham.
Damn!
I hate to do this in broad daylight.”
He hurled the knife across the shop. It stuck in one of the coffins. Crossing the room, he yanked it out, then ran his hand thoughtfully over the wooden box. To her surprise, he began to chuckle. “But I’ve got just the way to get you there without drawing attention.”
* * *
“No more,” said Rainulf as Thomas tried to pour him another brandy. “I’ve no desire to end up drunk.”
A sound came from downstairs—a thump against the front door.
“No more visitors,” Rainulf muttered.
“I’ll send him away,” offered Brad, sprinting downstairs. Rainulf heard the door open, then a startled exclamation in English. “Magister!” Brad called up the stairs. “I think you should come down here!”
Thomas followed Rainulf down the narrow staircase to the street. At first he thought the tattered mass on the ground was a bundle of rags—but then he noticed the blood, and a cowled head. Kneeling, he pulled back the cowl and saw the familiar, hideously pockmarked face. “Rad?”
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.
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; she 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.