PRINCE OF THE WIND (8 page)

"You are mine!" she had screamed. "No other shall have you save me!"

He feared her, he realized as he walked to the bed and sat down. He wrapped his hands around the tall column of his footboard and clung to it as though it was a lifesaver thrown to him in a raging sea.

Aye, he feared her as he had never feared anything else in his young life. Her intensity had put that fear in him, and her insanity had kept it there. Despite the fact that he knew for a certainty she was locked inside the high, barricaded walls of Baybridge asylum, he still feared her and what she was capable of doing.

That she would kill him if given the chance, he had no doubt. If her maniac threats were to be believed, she would skin him alive and feed him piecemeal to the vultures. Or she would disembowel him and tack his still-bleeding heart to her bedchamber door. Her cruelties knew no limits.

"You tell him what I have sworn!" she supposedly had screamed at the guards who had taken her to Baybridge. "Tell him what I have sworn!"

How the word had gotten back to Briarcliffe was anyone’s guess, but Riain had heard of it while eavesdropping on a conversation between his father and eldest brother.

"They have put her in one of the most secure cells within the asylum," his father had assured a concerned Tiernan. "She is chained by the neck to the wall and the cell door is never unlocked."

"How is she fed?" Tiernan asked.

"Through a slit in the door. No one speaks to her and no one visits. There is a privy hole in one corner, so there is no need for anyone to come into contact with her."

Despite the woman’s murderous promises, Riain felt sorry for her. It was obvious that she was deranged; he had known that from the beginning. But to be treated so cruelly, so inhumanely…

"She deserves her sentence," Duncan had suggested when Riain once broached the subject. "Should she ever get loose, son, your life would be in jeopardy. Do you think either your father or hers would take that chance?" Duncan laid a gentle, understanding hand on his student’s shoulder and squeezed. "Forget her, brat. She is precisely where she belongs."

But Riain could not forget Suzanna de Viennes. He wished he could, but her memory was like a bad taste left in the mouth.

Just as the vague, haunting memory of his mysterious savioress was like cool, sweet water on his tongue.

The madwoman shielded her eyes against the bright glare of the lantern. She scuttled away like a rodent, plastering herself tightly into a ball in the corner of the filthy stone cell, drawing up her scabby knees into the protection of her thin arms.

"Up with you!" the warder snarled. "You got a visitor!"

Suzanna trembled so violently from the sudden appearance of the warder and his two vicious assistants that her teeth clicked together. As a result, she did not heed the man’s words, but buried her face into the corner of the wall in an attempt to hide.

"Get your slovenly arse up!" he bellowed. "We ain’t got all day!"

Brutal, uncaring hands grabbed her arms and jerked her to her feet. The chain attached to the slave collar around her neck slapped against the wall and pulled back her head. A low moan gurgled from her throat as she sagged in her jailers’ hands.

"Gawd, but the bitch stinks!" one assistant grumbled.

"We’ll have to bathe her ’fore she sees that swell, we will," the other snorted. He grabbed a handful of Suzanna’s limp, greasy hair. "You’ll like that, won’t you, dearie?"

Suzanna whimpered as she hung between the heavyset men. She had felt their rough hands on her many times over the last two years.

* * *

"Get her to the bath house," the warder said with disgust. "And no dallying." He held the lantern higher so he could look at his assistants.

Runyon Kullen shrugged disdainfully. "Ain’t nothing to me."

The warder knew he was wasting his breath. As sure as the sun would set in the west, Runyon and Jacoby would do more than bathe the madwoman. Not that he cared. He had no idea who she was. Since no one had visted her before now, he hadn’t wondered at her origins. But with the arrival of the gentleman this morning, he suspected she might well have been a servant at the Northwinds keep of Vent du Nord, for the swell who asked to see the woman named ’Zanna spoke like a Northzoner.

"Well, be about it!" The warder stepped aside as Runyon and Jacoby dragged the foul-smelling woman from the cell. He put up a hand to cover his nose, nearly gagging at the stench that had rolled off her body, and wondered how his two assistants could possibly mount her.

* * *

As she was propelled down the long stone corridor, with its iron-smelling water dripping from the ceiling and all manner of unmentionable detritus littering the slimy floor, Suzanna made no attempt to fight her jailers. She had learned long ago that to anger them was to receive more than her normal share of cuts and bruises. Runyon liked to use his fists on her; Jacoby was especially fond of the quirt he carried in his wide leather belt. The men enjoyed brutalizing her.

She knew today would be no different.

* * *

Guy du Mer was hard pressed to recognize the thin, ghost-pale woman who was led into the warder’s office. He stared at the apparition—striving to find anything of the old Suzanna de Viennes in the pathetic creature who stood before him with head down and hands clasped in front of her.

"Suzanna?" he questioned, taking a step toward her. He stopped when she cringed.

The warder chuckled. "Ain’t used to visitors."

Du Mer clamped his lips together. Despite his acute dislike of Suzanna, he would not have wished this fate on her. Obviously, she had been greatly abused. His attention fastened on the warder. "Who is to blame for her mistreatment?"

The warder’s eyebrows shot upward. "What mistreatment, Your Grace?" He looked dumbfounded. "Ain’t nobody laid a hand to this ’un. That was the order, Milord—solitary confinement and no visitors."

The Duke of Downsgate clenched his hands into fists. He regarded the warder with a malevolent stare. "I know abuse when I see it, man!"

"If’n there was any abusing done, Milord, it was a’done at her own hands." He drew himself up to his full five-feet, six-inch height. "Ain’t nobody done nothin’ to this ’un."

A muscle jumped in du Mer’s cheek. He flung a dismissive hand at the warder. "Leave us."

The warder shook his head. "Can’t do it, Your Grace. Got orders she ain’t to never be left alone with no one."

Du Mer grabbed the collar of the warder’s tattered jacket. He slammed the man against the wall and leaned down, his nose only inches from the other’s. "I gave you an order, fool! Disregard it at your own peril. Baybridge is within my landgrave and I have authority to dismiss you." He drew closer to the man. "Do I make myself clear?"

The warder stared wide-eyed. "Y—you are the D—Duke?"

Du Mer shook the man, then released him. "Aye!"

"W—why didn’t you s—say so, Your G—Grace!" The warder slithered along the wall, staying well out of the Guy’s way. He cast a parting look at the doxy, then slipped out of the office.

Guy waited until the man had shut the door before he turned to face Suzanna. When he found her looking at him, her dark eyes hot with speculation, he knew she’d heard and understood every word.

"Why are you here, du Mer?" she asked, her stare steady.

Why he felt so unnerved by her gaze, Guy couldn’t say, but the way she was looking at him made the flesh crawl along his neck. "I am afraid," he said, sweeping his hand toward a chair, "I have bad news, Suzanna. Why don’t you sit down?"

She lifted her chin. "He is dead?"

"Two days ago." He watched for a flicker of grief in her face, but there was none. "He died in his sleep."

"As all good men should."

Du Mer felt a flash of resentment at her mocking tone. "Your father was,
indeed
, a good man."

She cocked her head. "Some would think so, I suppose." Her mouth twisted into a predatory smile. "Excuse me if I am not one of his admirers."

This was a mistake, du Mer thought. According to Tribunal law, at Gunter’s death, his only living child was heir to Northwinds. The law made no distinction for sanity or insanity in its rulers; the Tribunal made, and upheld, the laws, anyway. The prince—or in this case, princess—was merely a titular head of the government. Since no treaty, agreement or alliance could be made without the Tribunal’s implicit approval, it mattered little that the now-reigning heir was interned in an asylum. The people needed a de Viennes to sit the throne, as one had for five generations—so the Tribunal had ordered Suzanna’s release.

"A grave mistake, Your Eminence!" du Mer had argued with the Chief Tribunalist, but the old man held firm in his order.

"Suzanna de Viennes is heir to the throne of the Northwinds and she will be crowned as such! We send you to bring her back to her rightful place!"

All the way to Baybridge, Guy had worried. Suzanna had always been a cruel, vindictive child; she had grown into an even more cruel, brutally vindictive woman. What two years in the asylum had done to her was anybody’s guess, but Guy was sure it had done nothing to improve her temperament. He had hoped to find a catatonic, blathering fool, incapable of understanding the simplest command. What he had found was a flint-eyed, steel-jawed woman whose face bore the unmistakable stamp of revenge.

"You need not fear me, Guy," she said, guessing at the thoughts running through his mind. "I shall not require your presence at my court."

Rather than feeling relief at hearing he would not have to dance attendance upon her, Guy felt uneasy. He studied her closely, searching for the source of the vengeance she no doubt meant to wreck on him.

Suzanna smiled nastily. "I could take Downsgate." She obviously delighted in the look of fear her pronouncement had on her father’s best friend.

"You would have to have good reason," Guy answered, a trickle of sweat easing down his backbone. "I have done nothing against the crown and was named your father’s executor at his death."

A sly grin replaced her smile. "I could have you and your family murdered. I could even do it myself."

Du Mer’s heart lurched in his chest. The lunatic was more inclined to do that than to try to wrest his ancestral lands from him. She had never liked him any more than he had liked her, and now she had even more reason to hate him—he had been instrumental in having her sent to Baybridge.

"Or," she said, coming to stand directly in front of him, "I could simply banish you and allow your family to remain in control of Downsgate at my pleasure." Once more she cocked her head. "They would remain safe and sound on land you have owned for three hundred years, but you would not be there."

Du Mer gaped at her. "You would exile me?"

"I would."

"For what reason?" He hated the tremor of hurt and helplessness in his voice.

Suzanna did not answer, but unbuttoned the cuffs of her plain gray gown. She rolled back the sleeves until they were well above her elbows. "Look at my arms, Guy."

Reluctantly, he glanced at the thin, reed-like arms and winced. There were old scars and fresh, livid bruises on her ghastly-pale flesh. He turned away.

"My jailers were not born nor bred as
gentle
men. Their hands are callused and careless of a princess’ tender skin."

Out of the corner of his eye, Guy saw her unbuttoning the bodice of her shapeless gown.

"They are men of huge appetites, and there used to be more of me for them to gobble up than there is now."

Guy felt, rather than actually saw, her pull open the bodice. When she demanded he look, he shook his head.

"Come now, du Mer!’ she scoffed, pulling the bodice further apart. "Your Overlordess has given you an order. Are you giving me reason to accuse you of sedition so I may safely and legally confiscate your lands?"

Guy’s jaw tightened and he swung his head toward her, deliberately letting his gaze shift to her exposed bosom. He was shocked to see she wore no corset, no camisole to hide her nakedness, equally shocked to see dark bruises and teeth marks on her bare breasts. He forced himself to look into her face.

"They will pay for what they have done to me." Her words fell like poisonous darts. "I can promise you that." She began to button her bodice.

"And rightfully so," he whispered, keeping his gaze on her.

She smiled. "Always the gentleman," she mocked. "The tender-hearted Romny."

Du Mer inclined his head. He was proud of his gypsy heritage.

"You have an escort with you?" she asked, changing the subject so quickly du Mer blinked with a moment’s confusion.

"Aye," he answered. At her elevated brow and tilted head, he corrected himself. "Aye, Your Grace."

The Princess of the Northwinds laughed huskily, then sat as gracefully as her bare feet and shapeless gown would allow.

"I shall require adequate traveling clothes," she said, smoothing the wrinkled skirt around her legs.

"Of course, Your Grace," du Mer said from between clenched teeth.

"And a coach and four." She studied him. "Liveried servants to attend me."

He sketched her a bow. "As you wish."

"A basket of culinary delights that would thrill the most jaded taste." She put a finger to her lip. "And the very best wines you can find."

"Certainly."

She gazed sharply at him. "Are there still Chalean forces on Northwind soil?"

Du Mer felt a twisting in his gut. He knew she was bound to inquire about the Chaleans. "There were forces from all three countries—"

"Chale, Ionary and Oceania," Suzanna snapped, fanning her hand with dismissal. "I know that." She narrowed her hot eyes. "But are they still here?"

"Olan Hesar and his Windwarrior’s were routed about three months after—" He looked away from her.

"After my imprisonment?"

Du Mer refused to take her bait. "The four allies, the Zones included, of course, were all set to attack him in return, but he had mined his harbors and any ship attempting to enter Viragonian water was blown to bits."

"Well," she said, her brows moving upward. "I suppose that rather effectively keeps him in his own bailiwick, so to speak."