Chapter 12
FASTER THAN DAWN
“He what?”
A furious hand swung across the table, sending goblets of wine and platters of half-eaten food flying across the room. They landed on the stone floor in a cacophony of clamor. Silently, the nearby servants knelt to begin the work of cleaning up the mess, even as their master continued to rage.
“What do you mean he got away?” Dudley shouted, not bothering to keep his anger in check.
The man before him stammered out a mumbled reply, refusing to lift his head enough, so Dudley could see the coward’s face. It angered him all the more.
“I swear,” he ground out from between his clenched jaw, “if you do not speak up and tell me exactly what has happened, I will cut out your tongue so you are unable to say another word for the rest of your miserable life.”
His men knew well enough to take any uttered threat from the Baron seriously. He had instilled that fear in them long ago. The fruit of his labor was clear when the guard cleared his throat and squared his shoulders, finally speaking with some semblance of clarity.
“We did as you ordered,” the man whose name Dudley had never bothered to learn said.
“We waited until we had crossed the border into Blackwood’s land and then we struck.
They had stopped to water the horse and the girl was injured and bound.
It should have been a simple thing to kill the Marquess and bring her back to you. ”
“Yes,” Dudley echoed, a deadly kind of calm in his voice. “It should have been simple enough that a trained monkey could do it. How could you be so feeble-minded enough to make such a mess of things?”
“It is not my fault, my lord,” the man rushed out in a pathetic attempt to excuse his failures.
“Her hands were tied. She had taken such a beating. We weren’t expecting her to wield a blade.
I did not think a woman could fight like that.
I don’t think I have ever even seen a man fight with those kinds of injuries. ”
“I do not care,” Dudley screamed, “about her sword skill! I wanted the Marquess dead, and he is not.”
“He was injured,” the guard offered. “It would take a miracle for him to have survived a cut like he had. From shoulder to navel. And with still a ways to go before any chance of a healer. He is as good as dead.”
“‘As good as dead. He is as good as dead,’” the Baron echoed. “But he is not dead, is he?”
The man shook his head, fear growing in his eyes as Dudley stalked towards him.
“No, he is not.” The Baron’s hands wrapped around the guard’s neck, squeezing it until his face turned a splotchy shade of red. “Do you know what you have done? Do you know what you have ruined?”
Blinking, the man shook his head with considerable effort.
“By failing to complete the tasks set before you, you have given away our plot to the Marquess. He now knows that we do not care for his allyship. You have made him an enemy. Worse than that, by letting him get away, you have given him the chance to warn others of our plans.”
The hall was silent. Maids shuffled out of the way, carrying the tossed food back to the kitchen to bring replacements. The members of the council and other esteemed villagers who shared the Baron’s table all wore the same vile, vengeful look their master did.
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
His words of fury echoed against the stone walls, bouncing around the room. The man’s fingers clawed at the Baron’s hands, fighting for enough air to form his reply. After another desperate minute, Dudley loosened his grip, though his eyes stayed narrowed.
“F-forgive me, my lord,” the man forced out, hoarsely.
Tilting his head, the Baron considered the man’s request for a moment before turning to face the rest of the room.
“Did you hear him? He is asking for forgiveness. After being bested by a woman in combat, letting the rest of my men die, and ruining all the plans I have spent years cultivating, all he has to say for himself is beg for forgiveness?”
Dudley did nothing to hide the disgust in his words. He scanned the faces at the table, each a mixture of anticipation and repulsion of their own. Slowly, like a snake squeezing the life out of its next meal, Dudley turned his eyes back to the guard still in his grasp.
“No.”
The decision was simple, straightforward, and clean, as was the motion of Dudley’s dinner knife slipping into the man’s gut.
Dropping the man onto the floor, Dudley looked in apathy as the guard collapsed to the ground, a pool of blood staining the Baron’s boots.
Only when the body had shuddered its last did the Baron move to address the rest of the room.
“I will not allow anything to ruin my plans,” he spoke with chilling calmness. “I have waited for far too long to let something as trite as inability or foolishness or weakness get in the way of what I have in store for those blasted Scots.”
No one bothered to answer his declaration, but the Baron wasn’t expecting one.
He stalked back to his seat at the table, trekking bloody footprints across the floor as he went.
Two maids rushed forward, one with a fresh platter of food and the other with a filled glass of ale.
He picked up the goblet and drank greedily, wiping his dripping beard with the back of his hand.
Slamming the cup down, he waited for the servant to fill it again.
This time, he drank more slowly, studying the room over the rim of the glass.
“This changes everything,” he said at last, immune to the growing tension of the room.
“We cannot allow the Scots any chance at preparing for our invasion. Should the Marquess survive and warn his neighbors, they will be sure to summon their allies. I will not give them the opportunity to do so. If this attack is going to be successful in wiping out the heathens entirely, and I intend for it to do it just that, then we must catch them before they know we are coming.”
“What do you suggest, my lord?”
The question came from the Captain of his household, a man with a thirst for violence almost as insatiable as the Baron’s. He spoke not in doubt or questioning, but in hungry anticipation for what was to come. A thin smile spread across the Baron’s face.
“We do not wait for any of the others. We cannot afford to waste such time.” He stood and began pacing the Great Hall, goblet in hand.
Everywhere he went, he smeared traces of his earlier bout of violence, the red footprints marking his path. More than once, he stepped back into the pool of blood. A body on the floor of his hall was nothing new.
“We will attack with the forces that are already gathered here. And in the morning, we will send word to all of our allies that they should join us on the border.”
The plan started to take shape in his mind, convincing the Baron over and over of the victory he was sure to enjoy.
“That is exactly what we will do. With a first wave of attacks, we will weaken them, threaten them, make them fear us.” He paused with a wicked grin. “And then when the others join us, we will finish what we have started.”
A plate shattered, sharp and loud, on the stone behind him.
Dudley whirled around to find the offending party.
Broken ceramic littered the floor, spreading into the still growing pool of blood behind him.
It took only a moment to find the wench who had dared to interrupt him.
He stepped closer to her, the leather soles of his boots crunching over the shards, reducing them to a powder as he went.
With his palms placed flat against the table, he leaned forward, getting as close to the girl as he could.
Terror filled her eyes, a sight he relished, even as her chin jutted into the air.
“How very kind of you to ensure that I did not forget your vile presence,” he spoke silkily. “Guards! Take her to the dungeons. Now.”
The room started to hum with murmurs of confusion as two of the men stationed at the entrance of the hall stepped forward. Their hands gripped the tops of her arms and her head sank into her chest.
“We have already had too many mishaps today,” he told her. “I cannot afford to let you run off and warn your savage people of my plans. Do not dare think I have forgotten you, Laura—why you are here, nor your experience with escaping.”
The guards stood by her, patiently waiting to do his bidding. Dudley waved her off with a dismissive hand.
“Take her away. Chain her to the wall. One meal a day. One pail of water. We cannot risk the brat having the means to escape.”
With that, the men dragged Laura out of the hall, their hands rough and hard on her already fatigued muscles.
Every step they took, every inch closer to the dungeon they got, was a deeper plunge into despair for the girl.
She cast one last glance over her shoulder and into the Great Hall, knowing this would likely be the last time she ever saw the place.
It was every bit the nightmare it had always been in the three years she had been here.
Dirty and stinking thrushes on the ground, the Baron’s latest victim in a heap on the floor, greedy men stuffing their puffy cheeks with greasy food and rich wine.
Yet, despite the stark lack of humanity in the room, her heart still wrenched in half as she was dragged into the corridor, desperately hoping this wouldn’t be her end.
The time Laura had to be brave was long since past. A bone chilling air settled in around her, wrenching shivers from her frame.
There was no telling how many hours had passed already.
Her despair had morphed into dogged determination to escape this cell through whatever means necessary.
She was convinced that death would be more welcome than a lifetime locked in another cage.
But after tugging on the bars and digging at the edge of the cell until her fingertips bled, and her hands ached, she had given up on escape.