The Fifth Knight(59)

“Let her go,” he said.

The red-bearded knight stepped away as le Bret loosed her. Fitzurse stood before her.

“Stand up,” he said.

Theodosia staggered upright. The noose squeezed tight around her throat, pulled by the cord attached to her ankles, stopping her breath, her voice. Blood pounded in her face, her head. She tried to scream. None came.

Fitzurse nodded. “That will suffice.” He grasped the back of her neck and forced her over again.

The rope around her throat loosened, and she pulled in fast, frantic gasps of air.

He brought his face close to hers with blue eyes that shone with an unnatural pleasure. “You need to keep very, very still, or you will throttle yourself. Do you hear me?”

She returned Fitzurse’s gaze, though her heart seemed to want to break from her chest. “I hear you.” Her voice came thick with her own spittle. His warning had given her a tiny hope. Thrown on the fire, she’d struggle like a dervish. Fitzurse’s ropes would take her more mercifully than the burning embers; she would die without revealing Mama’s location.

Fitzurse clicked his fingers to the waiting le Bret. “Bring her back to the horses.”

The horses?

Le Bret’s enormous arm went around her waist, and he flung her over his shoulder.

The huge knight’s odious smell caught the back of her throat. Worse, he steadied his hold on her with one huge hand wedged between her thighs. But she kept completely still. Fitzurse’s hideous snare might well prove her salvation, but only if certain death was the only alternative. Horses were not fire, not death, at least not yet. The snow-covered forest floor swayed beneath her in time with le Bret’s giant strides, purest white now they’d left the blood-ravaged clearing. The hoofprints of a single horse were rapidly filling in with the relentless snow. Quercus’s tracks, from when that betrayer Benedict had fled when he could. Fled to save himself. Abandoning her, throwing her to the savage dog that was Fitzurse.

“Put her on mine.” Fitzurse again.

Le Bret swung her up and over the horse’s back. She landed smack on her stomach on the saddle, and her breath gasped out.

Fitzurse appeared next to her at his mount’s neck, one hand on the reins. “Secure her, le Bret.” Another rope was lashed across her back, tightening her as hard against the saddle as Benedict had tied their bundle of clothes.

Fitzurse raised a gauntlet-clad hand and grasped her jaw, forcing her to look at him. “I had such delightful plans for you. Thanks to that knave Palmer, they’ve been thwarted.”

“Good.” She forced the word out.

“Thwarted. Not stopped.” He tightened his grip. “When I get to Polesworth Abbey, I will have double the pleasure. Your mother first, then you.”

He knew. She stared at him, stomach contracted. “Who betrayed us?” she whispered.

“You did, you clever girl.” He let go her jaw and tapped her playfully on the nose. “Clever and pretty, so those idiot pilgrims remembered you.”

It was her fault. Her stupid, sinful pride in her wits. She wanted to scream out as Fitzurse gathered the reins and mounted the stallion beside her.

She’d led Fitzurse to Mama, led death to Mama’s door like she’d sworn she never would.

Settling in the saddle, he crushed her ribs against the saddle horn to her right. He patted the back of her neck. “But I’m not sure just how I will dispatch you both. The Bull’s only one option, and I have many, many others. It’ll pass the time to Polesworth if I tell you about them.” He clicked to his horse, and it set off. “But I promise you, Sister. For all the trouble you have caused me, I will make sure you get something very, very special.”

♦ ♦ ♦

Palmer sat astride Quercus in a thicket of concealing evergreens, watching out for the party of knights. And Theodosia. What could be taking them so long?

He had no guarantees they’d come this way, but it was the only route through this thick-grown woodland, a rough path with the signs of few travelers on it.

He peered ahead through the darkness. Still no sign. His guess might be wrong, Fitzurse might have taken a different direction. No. This was the quickest route to Polesworth. And Polesworth would be where he was headed. Another guess, but Palmer had no other choice.

The snow had near stopped, with only a few lazy flakes drifting down. With the clouds clearing fast, weak starlight and the sliver of moon gave some light, made many times stronger by the reflection of the bright fallen snow. He cursed it quietly. The cover of darkness would’ve been better. At least it gave him an early warning on the wolves. They still patrolled the night, and their distant howls sent fear right through him. But he needed the beasts. They were his only chance to secure Theodosia’s freedom. If she was still alive. Doubt knotted his guts.