Page 41 of The Splendor of Fire
Her mind filled with rapid thoughts of freedom—trees, mountains, songbirds, rain on her skin, her cottage on Breacais, a boat to Cràdh, Léo. Her shoulders slumped and she nodded.Yes.
He made a sound of pleasure.
“Ah I knew we could come to an agreement.”
She shook her head back and forth with deliberate force and mouthedNO.
He pushed off the windowsill and looked at her. “But now I know what you want, and that is something. You will come to me, my sweet. Willing and ready.”
She would rather eat a slug. Turning, she latched the shutters and squeezed around the other side of the desk, moving quickly toward the corridor. Niall plodded right behind her, his heavy breathing making her feel as if she were being followed by a monster. Moving down the hall’s gloomy length, she stopped before the next door. The chief’s solar.
There was no choice but to continue her morning collection of the pots. Her breathing became audible as she drew up her courage and opened the door. If he tried anything, the man would earn another missing front tooth beside the one her father had knocked out.
His eyes were alight with desire as she neared his bed. Reaching the bed, she dropped down and removed his very full pot and drew it swiftly up between them.
Fixing her sweetest smile to her face, she held it out to him and he jumped back and growled like the animal he was. Ensuring her face looked innocent and confused, she lifted an eyebrow.
“You think this is a jest.” A hand fisted in the knot of hair at the back of her head and he drew her painfully backward, waste sloshing out of the pot and across his shoes. “Do you think I’ll wait forever? That I’ve forgotten why and for what purpose I’ve brought you here? Youwill come to me, or I will come for you. The decision is yours. We can make this pleasurable for both of us, or only me.”
If she had a way out, if she had a way to run, she would break the pot over his pasty head. He tightened his grip in her curls. “I will give you time, but show me that you are trying or I will lose my patience.”
Hating herself, she nodded and he released her.
“Now. Clean these.” He kicked off his shoes and threw them at her, but they missed, landing on either side of her.
Léo wouldn’t have missed the target.The unreasonable thought almost made her laugh, and then cry, but she remained calm and picked up the shoes with her right hand and hefted the pot in her left.
Thankful he did not follow her, she dashed into the privacy of the garderobe, and shut the door. She emptied the pot, stomach roiling, and she screamed as loud as she could. Lungs burning, only a clicking rasp came from her throat. Her stomach heaved and she bent over the hole cut into the bench and vomited.
Sinking to her knees and shaking with sickness, she curled into a ball. A wave of rejection hit her fresh and hard, sweeping her off her feet and sucking her into a tide of torment.God, what have I done to earn your wrath? Please forgive me. Please God, I will do anything, forgive me. Show me the way. Get me out of here.
After a few more minutes of letting herself cry the tears she never let fall, resolve armored around her. Crying would do her no good, she must endure. For strength, she touched the heavy gold chain tucked inside her dress and hidden by her shawl.Wear it for me, as the one I’ve chosen.The words held her together. She still belonged to someone, and one day, they would be together.
Please Lord, even if you are angry with me, be merciful to Léo. Please don’t let him die. Help him to get stronger.
Wiping her tears, she sucked in a breath, then pushed to her feet. Collecting the pots, and Niall’s disgusting shoes, she emerged into the hallway and walked back to the servants’ corridor, and down its dank stairs to the ground floor dungeon.
In the far corner of the moldering stone gaol she deposited soiled pots and shoes into Isobel’s wooden trough and poured water into the bottom, then searched the shelf for soap. Finding none, she wandered tothe shelves in the back corner. A light breeze ruffled over her wet skin. She held her hand out and felt for air. Nothing but her imagination.
After scouring the pots, she placed them upside down to dry. As she scrubbed her hands, another breeze cooled across her fingers.That was not imagined.
Wetting her cheeks to better judge where the draft originated from, she stepped into the middle of the room. Her left cheek cooled.
Following the tiny waft of air, she wandered through an archway and paused. Her right cheek cooled. She walked forward and collided with a wall. In the darkness she felt along the damp walls and realized that there was a ragged hole in the rock. Her hands felt around the hole, little wider than her hips, and removed a few stones to open it farther, tossing them aside.
Crouching in the dirt, she stuck her arm through the hole and waved it around. Her hand did not collide with wall. It was an opening.
Getting onto her belly, she slid forward, pulling her chest, then hips, through the opening. She waved her arm above her head. No ceiling. Rocking to her feet, she wandered forward, arms outstretched. Her shoes skittered away from her and she tumbled down stairs, skinning the backs of her legs, landing in a pile of stone.
Feeling hundreds of round rocks all around her, she realized she was sitting in an old river bed. She felt behind her. Stairs. A river opening. It was an old water gate. Perhaps connecting to the outside.
Something furry brushed her hand and skittered away, and she cringed, thankful she couldn’t see whatever it was. One hand extended, she crawled forward. No wall. Getting back to her feet, she kept her steps slow and moved forward up the rocky passage.
After walking for ten minutes light began to penetrate the darkness. She kept walking. After five more minutes, her shoes sank into thick mud. She continued forward, the light becoming brighter and brighter, until a mouth began to form in the distance.
Thighs burning from trudging through muck, she put a hand on either side of the mouth of the opening and pulled herself out, astonished to find herself in the center of a grassy knoll. Bracken rose all around her in the impenetrable forest and shrouded her location.
A tall tree rose at the edge of her distant vision and she ran toward itlike a bird freed from its cage. Launching herself into its branches, she climbed, higher and higher. At the top she looked out over the forest, spreading her hands to the sky. Below her, a pool caught the waters of the Albhainn Cille Mhaire.
