Chapter Twenty #2
Bevan had secured her arms at the elbows, so tightly that Alys could feel her chest muscles on the verge of tearing.
Then he forced her mouth open and replaced the gag deep between her teeth before picking her up by her restraints as though she was a sheaf of grain.
He dropped her into the bottom of the deep wardrobe, her skull banging against the thick lip of wood.
She heard Layla’s muffled scream, and then a moment later, the woven basket containing the monkey was tossed atop Alys’s head.
The doors swung shut solidly, leaving her in complete blackness, and Alys heard the scraping of the lock.
It sounded like a blade being honed.
The forest rang with the sound of the soldier beating his sword against his shield, and Sybilla felt made of stone so still was she astride Octavian.
“Rebels, come out!” the soldier commanded in a voice that carried with it the hard experience of many battlefields.
Sybilla looked up at the undersides of the well-camouflaged dwellings hung in the trees. Not a whisper was heard from any of them, although around her on the forest floor, fires still blazed, pots bubbled, chickens scratched the ground where snow had been scraped away.
They would not deny her.
Sybilla took a deep breath. “It is Sybilla Foxe who commands you, Lady of Fallstowe Castle, and sister to Lady Alys. You are surrounded by armed soldiers. You will bring the girl to me—the runted child with the yellow hair. You will bring her to me now, or I will burn this village to the ground!”
The only reply she received was the wind in the branches, and then the sudden, muffled sound of perhaps a woman’s fearful sob.
Sybilla waited for a count of ten. Then she called out to the soldiers, “Fire the trees.”
Her men surged forward without hesitation, torches ready.
They quickstepped through the village, going to the ground level huts and the bases of trees, kicking through and scattering piles of dried hay and thatching, touching their contagious flames to anything consumable. The smoke was instant, thick and black.
“Call your dogs off, you heartless bitch!” an old man shouted hoarsely, his bent and pointed backside the first thing appearing from the underside of one of the tree huts. A rope ladder unfurled beneath him and he began to climb down, glancing hatefully at Sybilla. “I said call them off!”
“You do not command me, old man,” Sybilla replied calmly as her soldiers never paused. “Where is the girl?”
“Her family’d rather die than hand her over to the likes of you!” The old man said, reaching the ground with both feet in a stomp and then striding toward Octavian. The horse tensed and raised his muzzle slightly.
A soldier stepped to the front of Sybilla’s mount and leveled a crossbow at the old man’s chest. “One step more and you’re a dead man.”
Sybilla heard the click of mechanism as the soldier readied to fire. The old man stopped in his tracks, a tic wrinkling his already weathered cheek. He stared at the deadly, pointed end of the weapon.
“No!” a little voice shouted, and then the tree tops came alive with long tongues of ladders, and leather-clad legs appeared through the growing cloud of hovering smoke.
In moments, no fewer than three score people—men, women, children—haggard and dirtied and clothed in what appeared to be the forest itself had gathered together at the center of Sybilla’s crackling and smoldering threat.
Sybilla recognized the diminutive child, her shoulders clasped by a grown woman, moving to the fore of the crowd.
Sybilla gathered her skirts to one side and shook her boot free from the stirrup, then swung down from Octavian. Her soldiers had left their arsonistic duties to truly surround the destitute people, their attention focused on their lady.
Sybilla approached the crowd and stopped only six feet away from the girl and her glowering mother.
“You lied to me, child.”
The girl shook her head, her eyes wide and bulging, her white face highlighted by the scarlet patches on her cheeks. “I’m not a child! I’m thirteen!” In that instant, Sybilla was reminded of Alys so clearly that it pained her.
“What do you mean, she lied to you?” the girl’s mother accused. “She’s never laid eye upon your cruel self!”
Sybilla raised her eyebrows. “That’s not true, is it, girl? We met the night of the feast.”
The girl’s mother’s eyes went to the top of her daughter’s head. “Tiny?”
“I’m sorry, Mam,” the girl croaked. “Truly, I am! I wouldn’t have told her anything, but she was to break me arm!”
“No,” Sybilla interrupted. “No, I would have never deliberately hurt you, Tiny, and I told you as much. I could not have turned you loose until I had the information I sought, and I could clearly feel your frailty beneath my fingers. Had you struggled, your arm would have given way.” Sybilla looked to Tiny’s mother. “Hmm?”
The woman nodded.
Sybilla looked back to the girl. “I didn’t harm you, and in fact, I paid you a fine piece of gold for your cooperation.”
Tiny’s mother gasped. “You said the coin was from Lady Alys!”
“But you lied to me,” Sybilla continued. “Lady Alys did not go to London. Piers Mallory walked into that city alone.”
The old man’s face fell from the hateful scowl into genuine surprise. “What do you mean he entered the city alone?”
“Just what I said, old one,” Sybilla turned her head fully to him. “Have you any guess as to why that was?”
He frowned and shook his head. “They … they left here together, only yester morn. They knew the route, they had plans to—Alys, she was to send word to you once they gained the city.”
Sybilla was stunned into silence for a moment.
She spoke carefully. “I have watched your town the whole of the time my sister was obliged to stay here. The night before she and Piers Mallory left, Tiny confirmed to me where they would go next. We rode ahead to the city to wait for them, so that I could intercept my sister and bring her home before she acted foolishly before the king and found herself imprisoned. But when Piers Mallory arrived, he was quite alone.”
“Did you speak to him?” the old man asked.
“No. He is not my concern. Only my sister.”
“Mayhap you are the one who is lying, and you wish to harm Lady Alys,” Tiny piped up suspiciously. “Ira’s always said that nobles’ favorite sport is spinning falsehoods—and you don’t look a bit like Lady Alys!”
“And you don’t look to be thirteen,” Sybilla countered.
“But I can assure you that I am indeed her sister, and that my utmost priority is her safety.” Tiny properly chastised, Sybilla looked once more to the old man.
“And as it was you who sent them, Ira, perhaps you had better tell me what you know before your village is naught but a smear of charcoal on the forest floor.” She flicked her eyes upward.
“One of your nests is on the verge of catching.”
“I already told you, viper,” Ira snarled. “They left together. And Piers, fool that he is, would never let harm come to your spoiled brat sister. For a reason known only to God, he’s in love with her. He took her to wife at the Foxe Ring.”
Sybilla swallowed, nodded, and then looked to the ground for a moment. When she again met the old man’s eyes, she was heartened by the concern she saw, lurking just beneath the put on disdain.
“If their plan has wandered so far from the course they both intended, then I am inclined to believe that they are both in great danger.”
Ira’s hairy brows drew downward. “Judith Angwedd.”
Sybilla was more than a little surprised to hear the old man speak that name. “He told you of her?”
Ira nodded once sharply. “He did. But I know enough of the bitch personally to last me the rest of my miserable life.” The old man’s mouth thinned, and Sybilla thought she saw his shoulders square. “Piers Mallory is my grandson, lady. My grandson, and the sole heir of Gillwick Manor.”
Sybilla drew a quick breath. She was very rarely ever surprised, but this piece of information shook her.
She looked around her to the soldiers and the crowd of villagers.
“Do what you can to put out the flames, all of you—go!” she shouted.
Then she looked back to Ira. “You’ll be coming with me, Ira. ”
“You’re no mistress here, woman, and I am not your subject to be ordered about,” the old man sneered.
Sybilla simply waited.
He fidgeted for a moment, crossed and then uncrossed his arms. “I’ll get me bag.”