Chapter Ten
“I shall not ask again.”
He’d been burned, beaten, poked, slapped and moderately cut.
Tied to a gnarled oak tree somewhere south of where the de Rosa’s had caught up to him, Fergus hadn’t yet become impatient with the situation.
For the moment, he was tolerant. Bertram de Rosa was missing his daughter and he was understandably brittle.
Besides, Fergus had suffered worse wounds at the hands of scorned women.
Most of what he’d received thus far had been child’s play.
“If I have told you once, I have told you a thousand times,” Fergus said patiently. “I know nothing of your daughter’s disappearance. I am a bachelor knight in the current service of Somerset. I was attempting to return home when you and your brigands ambushed me.”
“You are a liar,” Donat snarled in his face; the middle de Rosa brother had inflicted most of the torture. “We know you were at Framlingham. We found your handcart by the side of the road and followed your tracks.”
“I have no knowledge of any handcart, though I was in the vicinity of Framlingham. I have friends in Saxmundham and was passing through. That is why you found my tracks.”
“Liar! What did you do with her?”
“I have done nothing.”
“If she is lying dead somewhere in a ditch, you will curse the day you were born. I swear it on God’s Holy name.”
“If she is lying dead somewhere, it is not by my hand.”
Donat shoved his fist into Fergus’ stomach once again. It was the latest blow in a long line of many. Fergus coughed in pain, trying to convince himself it wasn’t so bad. He’d felt worse. But when a strike came to his face, he saw stars and thought, perhaps, that it was indeed bad.
Bertram stood with Lon and Alger, watching Donat beat their prisoner senseless.
Dixon helped his brother now and again by thumping the captive on the head when he was particularly uncooperative.
Only Daniel stood off by himself, watching the beating without emotion.
He had tried to intervene once to suggest reasoning was a better method of interrogation, but he had been ignored.
Now he said nothing. If his brothers beat their only suspect into oblivion, then they would never get any information out of him.
Their brutal methods would cause their failure.
Bertram was already feeling failure. Five days without Derica suggested that the trail was growing cold.
He suspected that le Mon had everything to do with her disappearance.
When they had asked their captive about le Mon, they had received nothing by way of answer.
It was becoming a maddening game. Watching his son split the prisoner’s lip, he turned to his brothers.
“I wish we had Hoyt with us,” he muttered. “He had a knack of being able to gain any information he wished.”
“That is because he used methods that Donat has yet to aspire to,” Lon said. “A hot poker up the arse has a way of making a man talk.”
Bertram grunted. “Aye, but my sons still feel that beating a man is the only way. Pure strength.”
“They’re young. They will learn.”
“Learn indeed. But they will not learn from the best.”
Bertram had flashes of his larger brother in times past, pouring scalding water on a man’s eyeballs in order to gain vital information.
Before the blow to his head, Hoyt invented new ways of creating pain to all those who opposed the de Rosa will.
Bertram found himself cursing that day when Hoyt took a blow so hard in the tourney that his helm had to be pried from his head.
He was never the same after that. He could have used the old Hoyt now, very much.
“If they want to learn how to dress and fold laundry, Hoyt can teach them very well,” Alger mumbled.
Bertram sighed. “I had hopes when he chose to ride from Framlingham in search of Derica, in the manner of days of old. But the moment we tracked down this thief, he disappeared without the stomach for doing what needs to be done.”
“Where do you suppose he went?”
“Who can say? To the nearest town to buy fabric, or perhaps he went home. I do not know. I am coming not to care any longer.”
The senior de Rosa brothers nodded in silent agreement. They continued to observe as Donat pummeled the hostage. It was having no effect. Finally, Bertram himself moved forward. He was tired of waiting. Grabbing his captive by the hair, he looked into the swollen blue eyes.
“I shall make this brief,” he said. “If I do not receive the answers I seek, then I will allow my son to do whatever he wishes to you. Keep in mind that he young, lacks discipline, and had a fondness for creating as much pain as he can. With that said, I will make you a proposition; whatever le Mon has promised to pay you, I will double it if you tell me where my daughter is.”
Fergus didn’t reply; he continued to stare at him. Bertram’s attempt at good will was fading. “Have you no answer for me?” he pressed.
Fergus didn’t say a word, and it was clear that he was not going to. Bertram let go of his hair and turned towards the men.
“Lon, Alger, backtrack his trail and leave no stone unturned,” he snapped. “If there is a house, search it. If there is a town, raid it. Take enough men-at-arms with you to satisfy that.”
The uncles moved for their horses, shouting to the company of soldiers that had accompanied them. Ten were singled out for the hunt. Bertram turned back to his sons.
“Daniel,” he addressed his eldest. “Go back to Framlingham. Mobilize two hundred men and prepare them for a march to Chateroy Castle. We are going to pay my old friend a visit and see if he knows the whereabouts of his son.”
Daniel didn’t say a word as he turned for his horse. Bertram watched him a moment, wondering if he would actually do as he was bade. The man was the least violent of the de Rosas and the most likely to disobey his father in that regard. When Daniel rode off, Bertram turned to Donat and Dixon.
“As for this one,” he tilted his head in Fergus’ direction. “Do what you must to wrangle information from him. But be mindful that he is our only link to your sister.”
For the first time, Fergus felt a distinct sense of despair as he watched Bertram de Rosa walk away.
He knew that the old man had been the only thing stopping the sons from unleashing on him.
He glanced at the two de Rosa brothers; they stared back with the eyes of something without a soul.
In that moment, Fergus knew that he was in a good deal of trouble.
*
It was a cold, misty morning. Garren had awakened before Derica and had built a fire to warm the freezing room, but it hadn’t been nearly warm enough by the time she rose.
Hissing with chill, she went in search of her clothing.
With the coverlet wrapped around her, she looked like a giant baby in too much swaddling.
Garren grinned as she banged about, pulling out the pretty blue lamb’s wool gown that the sisters had given her.
It was very warm, something she desperately needed at the moment.
“Cold, is it?” he quipped.
She groaned, trying to hold the dress with one hand and keep the coverlet about her with the other. Garren took mercy on her.
“Let me help you,” he said. “I shall hold the coverlet and you hold the dress.”
Derica’s teeth were chattering. Garren took hold of the coverlet, pulling it back just enough to get a peek at her nude body as she fumbled with the gown. It was too much for him to take.
“I know how to warm you, and quickly,” he said softly.
She was having a hard time manipulating the dress with her quaking hands. “H-how?”
He dropped the coverlet entirely and put his arms around her.
She squealed as he pulled her down on the bed, but quickly succumbed to his heated kisses.
He explored her with his burning hands, stroking her nipples that were hard from both his touch and the chill.
His body was big and warm, enveloping her.
Derica surrendered to him, each sensation new and wonderful.
He seemed to take delight in stroking her inner thighs, feeling her quiver and laughing softly when she did so.
When he finally took her, it was tenderly and far more slowly than it had been the previous night.
Now, he could be patient and experience everything he had been too crazed to experience their first time.
In reflection, he had been selfish. He would not be selfish now.
For Derica, it was as if they had been making love for a sweet eternity, yet it still wasn’t long enough.
When the rapturous spasms overtook her body once again, she was disappointed and elated at the same time.
Garren’s rapture came shortly thereafter, and they lay entangled in sweat and glory in a world where time had no meaning.
They were only aware of each other and their bliss.
But, as it did so often in their world, reality settled as the day grew light around them.
“Are you hungry?” Garren kissed her temple.
Derica yawned, snuggling against him. “Always.”
He kissed her again. “Then let us break our fast and depart. As much as I would love to languish with you all day in bed, I am afraid we cannot spare the time.”
They dressed in warm silence. The lamb’s wool gown was absolutely stunning on Derica’s figure.
The nuns had even managed to stir up a pair of warm hose for her, which she gladly put on even though they were a bit too small.
She braided her hair, smiling shyly when she caught her husband staring at her.
By the time she pulled on her soft slippers and swung the cloak over her shoulders, Garren had everything packed and waiting for her.