Chapter One #2
Caledonia lay back on her pillows. “I will,” she said. “I am a little hungry. Could you have someone bring me some food?”
Lady Lupa headed for the door. “I will serve you myself,” she said. “We have a wonderful new cook from Athens. He makes a cake with layers of dough and nuts and honey. I will bring you some.”
“Sounds delicious,” Caledonia said. “And anything with chicken. I do like chicken.”
Lady Lupa nodded and rushed out, leaving Caledonia resting back against the cushions.
With the wine and music and dancing, it was inevitable that she ended up dozing off.
It was dreamy and soothing with the flute music in the background, and as Caledonia drifted in and out, she began to hear something that didn’t sound quite normal.
She began to hear screaming.
Yelling was more like it. Things were crashing and there was shouting going on.
It sounded like a battle. Startled, she sat up as the flute player stopped and the two dancers came to a halt.
Concerned, she looked at the flute player, who seemed frozen, and then to the dancers, who were clearly terrified.
More crashing, more shouting, and Caledonia began looking around for a weapon.
The closest she came to was a big iron rod used to stir the embers in the brass brazier in the corner of the chamber.
Drunk, and still a little tipsy on mushrooms, she wielded it like a club.
Admonishing the dancers and the musician to remain in the room, she ventured out.
The ceilings were low down here, with a passageway that ran from the main stairs, from one end of Gomorrah to the other.
There were many smaller chambers on this level and people were beginning to emerge, hearing the same noise that she was.
The woman in the chamber next to her was still being pleasured, and Caledonia could hear the woman moaning as if nothing else was going on around them.
She found that rather comical.
But she banged her iron poker on the wall to stop whatever was going on in there, to alert them to the fact that there was trouble. Since her chamber was nearly at the bottom of the stairs, whatever trouble that was overhead would spill down here eventually.
She would be ready for them.
Rushing toward the stairs, she pressed herself up against the wall that was right where the stairs met with the corridor.
Anyone coming down the stairs wouldn’t see her, and that was exactly what she wanted.
Since the stairs were dark and narrow, she would have the advantage.
Waiting and listening, she could hear someone barking orders while more people shrieked. Something thumped.
Then they were coming down the stairs.
Lifting her iron rod, Caledonia waited until the first heavily armed knight hit the bottom stair and stepped out into the corridor.
Whack!
She brained the man right on the head and he fell to his knees, pitching forward onto his hands.
But she hadn’t knocked him out, so she swung again, knocking him to the ground as another knight came down the stairs.
Seeing yet another heavily armed man, she began swinging the rod at the man’s head and shoulders, but he easily grabbed it.
Terrified, she lashed out a foot and kicked the knight as hard as she could in the groin.
He teetered sideways.
By now, people from the other chambers had filtered out into the corridor, seeing the armed knights trying to make their way in and a small woman with long white hair beating them.
Gomorrah had guards of its own, and as Caledonia darted away from the knight she’d kicked in the groin, a couple of the big, burly guards came flying down the stairs, crashing into the men at the bottom.
More men came crashing down after them and there was a brawl at the bottom of the stairs.
By this time, Caledonia rushed back to her room where the two dancing girls and the musician were huddling fearfully. She focused on the women.
“Is there another way to leave this place?” she asked. “A rear door that no one knows about?”
The women nodded. “In the Sulfur Pit,” Lady Feather said. “There is a small staircase that leads to a door. If there was ever a fire, we are told to go to that door.”
“Then we must go,” Caledonia said quickly, grabbing the silk blanket she’d been lying on because both women were very thinly dressed. “Here—cover yourselves. We must hurry to that door.”
The women took the blanket, rushing from the room as the musician and Caledonia followed. She made sure to grab her purse and her cloak, both of which had been lying on the cushioned couch, and tore after the women.
It was dark and chaotic. People were running in all directions.
Caledonia could hear screaming and noise behind her and the sound of running feet.
That was everywhere, echoing off the stone walls.
She followed the women and the musician down some wooden steps to the Sulfur Pit level below.
This was the bottom of the guild, the bottom of what had once been a Roman temple.
There was a big stone floor down here and stone columns that held up the floor above it.
There was also a mosaic on one side of it indicating flowers and wine and birds.
Down here was where the most debaucherous things happened, and instead of chambers, there were simply curtains strung up.
But the stone floor and heavy ceiling also kept the sounds of the raid at a distance.
Things were happening down here as normal, and as Caledonia rushed by, curtains blew open and she saw a man with three women pleasuring him in every hole in his body.
The next curtained section had a man being whipped across his buttocks while a woman had her mouth on his male member.
There were other things going on but she didn’t take note.
She simply told everyone to stop what they were doing and run.
She could see the women and the musician on ahead and a small wooden staircase that led up the side of a wall and disappeared above.
People were disappearing up those stairs and Caledonia wanted to disappear up them also, but a young woman tripped and fell in front of her and she was forced to stop running and help the woman to her feet.
That delay was going to cost her.
“You!” someone boomed.
A loud and deep voice echoed off the walls, loud enough to startle Caledonia. She jumped at the sound, instinctively turning around to see two enormous knights a few feet behind her.
Self-preservation kicked in.
She pushed the woman she’d just helped toward the stairs, hissing encouragement to flee, but she didn’t try to run after her. She had a feeling she wouldn’t make it to the stairs.
“What do you want?” she demanded. “These people have done nothing wrong. They have nothing of value for you.”
The knight advanced on her. “What is your name?”
“Why?”
“Are you Caledonia de Tosni?”
That should have made her turn and run away as fast as she could, but she could only manage great confusion.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Why do you want to know?”
The knight kept coming. “Henry has sent me,” he said. “Are you Lady de Tosni?”
Henry. She was certain he didn’t mean anyone other than the king, because she and Henry had a difficult history together, but that didn’t abate her confusion. And she certainly didn’t want to give this knight her identity.
“I do not understand,” she said. “Why would you even ask me such a question?”
The knight finally came to a halt and looked at her.
“Because I was told Caledonia de Wylde de Tosni was being held against her will in this place,” he said.
Then he flipped up his three-point visor to get a better look at her.
“I was told to find a lady with white hair, and you have white hair. Are you Lady de Tosni? I require an answer.”
She stared at him a moment before looking at the man behind him, hearing screams and commotion in the distance. It was dark on this level and so difficult to see, but she could see people trying to escape in the other direction. But the knight’s words were sinking in and her gaze returned to him.
“I am not being held against my will,” she said. “Did the king tell you that?”
The knight nodded. “He did,” he said. “If you do not tell me that you are Lady de Tosni, I am going to assume that you are and take you with me. If you are not the lady I seek, I would suggest you tell me now.”
Even in the dim light, Caledonia could see that he had the brightest blue eyes she’d ever seen. “I am not the lady you seek,” she said.
“What is your name?”
“It is no concern of yours.”
Before he could reply, a body flew between them, screeching and flashing a dagger. Lady Lupa crashed into Caledonia and nearly sent her onto her bum.
“Do not fear, Lady de Tosni!” she cried, wielding a wicked-looking dagger against the knight. “I will protect you. Run! Follow the others and run!”
Caledonia rolled her eyes as her cover was unknowingly blown. Before she could take another breath, the knight was shoving Lady Lupa out of the way and Caledonia ended up over one of his broad shoulders.
He was heading for the exit.
But Caledonia wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
She began to twist and kick, managing to squirm off his shoulder enough to ram a finger into his right eye.
He staggered but didn’t let her go, now helped along by four knights.
Caledonia recognized two of them as one she’d brained and one she’d kicked in the groin.
She hadn’t struck hard enough to keep them down, and the quintet of heavily armed knights hauled her up the rickety wooden stairs to the secret exit that so many people were now aware of.
“Put me down!” Caledonia demanded, kicking one of the knights in the head when he came over to help subdue her. “Put me down or I swear I will kill you all!”