Devil's Dominion (9 page)

Allaston didn’t respond. She was too sick to care much about anything at the moment. Therefore, she followed like a dumb animal as the knight led her from the cell and up the slippery stone steps that led to the gatehouse. The knight could have been leading her to her doom for all she knew but, with a feverish mind, it never occurred to her to be fearful or suspicious. She was simply doing as she was told.

It was sunset as he took her out of the gatehouse and into the bailey beyond, but even the weak light from the setting sun hurt her eyes after three weeks in the vault and she squinted, going so far as to put her hand over her eyes. That stopped her forward momentum and she teetered a bit, disoriented and dizzy. The next thing she realized, the big knight had swept her into his arms and was carrying her across the bailey.

Having no point of reference with any part of the castle other than the vault she had been in, the scenery passed by her in a blur; a big, darkened bailey, some small individual structures she didn’t recognize, and finally great stone steps that led up into a towering keep. She only knew it was tall because she had removed the hand from her eyes briefly. She saw stone towering into the sky and closed her eyes again because it hurt to keep them open.

From the cold openness of the bailey to the dark, cool innards of the keep, she could feel the dampness of the structure as the knight carried her up some stairs. By this time, her face was on his shoulder because she was too exhausted to lift her head and her eyes were throbbing with the introduction of light after three weeks of darkness. He walked and walked, and then she heard a door slam. Soon, she was being set down.

“You will remain on this bed until I return,” he said, his tone grim. “If you move off this bed, I will put you back in the vault. Is that clear?”

Allaston simply nodded, eyes closed. She heard him move across the floor and then a door open and close. She could hear his footfalls fade away.

Sleep claimed her once more. She had no idea how long she had been asleep because when she awoke, it was to soft voices in the chamber. She could hear people moving around, taking. She heard the splash of water as it was poured. In a dream-like haze, she heard all of these things. Then, someone was shaking her awake.

“Woman,” came a soft voice. “Get up, now. I’ve had a bath brought for you. Get into it and clean up. You will feel better.”

A bath
. Allaston swore she had never heard more beautiful words in her entire life. She struggled to sit up with the thought of lovely water. God, it had been so long since she’d had a bath. It had been so long since she had been clean or warm. Was it possible such things still existed?

“A bath?” she repeated weakly. “But... but I have nothing to bathe with.”

“What do you mean?”

Allaston could see the big iron tub near the hearth, steam rising out of it, and it was like the lure of food to a starving man. It was calling to her. The hearth, too, had been stoked and a soft blaze was glowing.
Warmth!
Male servants had filled the tub and were finishing with the hearth, quickly leaving when their task was finished. Water was leaking out on the floor and puddling, but it didn’t matter. She saw the almighty bath as her cure and salvation, all in one.

“I do not have any soap,” she said, her eyes riveted to the steaming water. “Nor any clean clothing.”

The knight’s gaze lingered on her. “I will see what is in the other chambers,” he said. “There was a lady here, once. Mayhap she left behind items that are serviceable.”

Had Allaston been sharper and not wracked with fever, she might have thought on his words.
There was a lady here, once
. But she didn’t think on them. She really didn’t know what the knight meant by it. There was no way she could have known that the lady of Cloryn had been rounded up with her husband and killed by the very men who held her prisoner. All Allaston cared about was climbing into that tub and being warm for the first time in weeks.

As the knight went about hunting down something for her to wear that wasn’t soaked with dirt and filth, Allaston struggled to remove her clothing. Since she was not yet a fully consecrated nun, her clothing was simpler than those who had taken their final vows. She wore undyed woolen undergarments, a shift and rudimentary breeches that tied at the waist, and over that she wore a simple gown of unbleached wool that was a dirty white shade, dark and stained now with weeks of wear upon it. It didn’t fit her very well and was secured around her waist with a rope made from woolen strands.

Since she wasn’t fully consecrated, her hair was still long and usually worn in a tight braid. That braid had come out long ago and the loose hair had given Bretton the opportunity to grab it and cut it. Pushing her heavy hair out of the way, she struggled to remove her simple leather shoes and proceeded to untie the knotted belt around her waist.

The belt fell to the floor. She tried to remove her shoes standing up, but her balance was terrible so she ended up sitting down on the bed to do it. When the shoes came off, she struggled to her feet to remove the breeches, untying them and letting them fall to the ground. By the time she stepped out of them, the knight returned with a bundle in his arms.

Allaston watched with as much curiosity as she could muster as the knight tossed the bundle onto the bed. He began pulling it apart, setting things aside that he had wrapped up in the fabric.

“Here,” he said, pointing to a few items he had set aside on the mattress. “I found soap and oil and something for your face, I think. It smells like mint. And here are a few shifts and surcoats. The lady that was here before you was bigger than you are so these might not fit properly but at least they are clean. I would suggest you bathe, dress in these clean clothes, and go to bed. I will send a physic in to tend to you.”

Allaston simply stood there, watching him as he picked up one of the items he brought, a small alabaster pot, and sniff it. “Where is the lady of the house so that I may thank her?” she asked weakly.

The knight turned to look at her, realizing her fever-muddled mind was perhaps not very sharp based on her question. “She is no longer here,” he said. “Hurry, now. Take your bath and get to bed.”

He turned to leave but Allaston stopped him. “What is this place called?” she asked.

He paused at the door, hand on the latch. “You are at Cloryn Castle.”

Allaston thought hard. She believed she had heard the name before. “Cloryn?” she repeated. “And who are you?”

“I am Grayton.”

Allaston’s fogged mind emerged for a brief, lucid moment. “Thank you for your kindness, Grayton.”

He didn’t acknowledge her. He simply left the room and shut the door, leaving Allaston alone in the chamber that was growing progressively warmer with the heat from the fire.

The lure of the bath proved too great for her to delay any longer. Allaston took the soap off the bed and pulled the coarse gown over her head. Then she proceeded to peel off the rest. She left a trail of clothing to the tub, tossing her garments off as she went. By the time she reached the old iron tub, she was completely nude and she climbed in, slipping and landing heavily on her bottom in the tub and sending water sloshing everywhere. But she hardly cared. She dunked her head beneath the waterline and lingered there for a few seconds before emerging. Already, she felt better.

The cake of white lumpy soap in her hand smelled of lavender and she proceeded to soap every inch of her body from her head to her toes. The hair was washed, her face washed, and everything else on down the line. She didn’t have a scrub brush so she simply used her fingers, scrubbing until she could scrub no more. Everything was washed, rinsed, scrubbed, and smoothed.

Not only did the bath clean her body but it seemed to clean her mind as well. She was still fogged with fever but not nearly as bad as she had been. She was thinking much more clearly, so much so that she perked up and began to really look at her surroundings. The chamber was very well appointed with a comfortable bed, a big wardrobe, a small table with two chairs, and a big tapestry near the bed that seemed to depict a knight and lady in a romantic setting. In truth, it was a wealthy room, much like the rooms at her home, Pelinom Castle.

Cloryn Castle
. She had heard of it before. In fact, she’d heard her father mention the name but little else. Her father wasn’t one to discuss his business with his children, although he did discuss it with her older brothers, Coleby and Julian. They were being prepared to take over her father’s empire one day so it was natural that her father spoke to them about such things.

As she sat in the cooling water, she began to think on her siblings, sisters and brothers she missed very much. There was Coleby, her eldest brother who was big like their father but blond like their mother, and then Julian, who was the spitting image of her father. She was next, as the eldest daughter, and she tended to favor her father more than her mother also. Then came Effington and Addington, or Effie and Addie as they were called, two blond sisters that were born thirteen months apart and resembled twins more than single-birth siblings. She missed them the most. Effie had a loud mouth and loved jokes while Addie was very sweet and sickly a good deal of the time. Then, there was baby Cassian, who wasn’t so much a baby as he was an active toddler. He was as smart as a whip and a joy to the family.

Aye, she missed her family very much. She hadn’t seen them in over a year and she could only imagine how her father was going to react to a gift of her hair delivered to his doorstep. Even though she had never known her father to go to war since she’d been born, there was always a first time. He was fiercely protective over his family and she knew he wouldn’t take her abduction lightly. But she would not tell de Llion that, not when the man was so eager for Jax to respond to him.

So she sat in the tub and pondered her fears for the future as the water cooled. Eventually, she was forced to climb out, drying off her prune-like skin with one of the shifts that Grayton had brought her. She didn’t have anything else. The oil he’d brought her was still on the bed and she picked up the phial, smelling the contents. It, too, smelled of lavender and she smoothed it sparingly over her parched skin before donning a second shift of very soft wool. It was very fine and, she was sure, very expensive.

Much as Grayton had warned her, however, it was too big for her but she didn’t care. She put it on, and gladly, and also put on a dark blue brocaded robe over the top of it. The robe was very heavy, lined with rabbit fur, and sleeveless so the long, belled sleeves of the shift were revealed. Digging around in the pile of garments, she came across a pair of mismatched woolen hose with no ribbons to secure them, so she simply put them on and folded them down so they would stay on her feet.

Dressed warmly for the first time in weeks, she sat by the fire to dry her dark hair, running her fingers through it because she had no comb. She kept inspecting the ends, ends that de Llion had so brutally cut, lamenting the fact that he had cut her hair by at least two feet. But in the same breath, she thought it rather foolish to lament cut hair when she would be cutting it anyway when she took her ecclesiastical vows. Still, it was her last claim to vanity.

On the floor next to the hearth, Allaston continued to dry her hair and reflect on thoughts of her family and future. The fever still lingered and she would cough every so often, but overall, she felt much better than she had in a very long while. She was lost in thought, basking in the warmth of the fire, when the chamber door opened. Startled, she turned to see a most unwelcome sight.

℘

Bretton was still in the great hall, still at the feasting table lingering over a sixth cup of murky red wine when Grayton entered. Around them, the men had finished feasting and were now playing games of chance or telling loud stories over the buzz of conversation. The hall itself had grown smokier from the fire that had been stoked into mammoth proportions as Grayton crossed the floor, kicking the wandering dogs aside and refusing to get sucked into any gambling games. He managed to reach Bretton without getting pulled into a dice game, which was difficult for him. He usually didn’t have much self-control when it came to games of chance.

“It seems that the men do not intend to sleep tonight no matter how weary they are,” he commented as he sat down on the bench next to Bretton. “We may end up breaking up fights from all of the money changing hands in these games.”

Bretton was exhausted and the wine was making him half-lidded and somewhat drunk, a rare state for him. But he had worked harder than any of them as of late and, for once, was letting his guard down. He glanced at Grayton as he took another deep drink from his cup.

“Mayhap,” he said, somewhat neutrally. “How is the prisoner, Mother?”

Grayton grinned. “She is in the keep and bathing three weeks of cold and filth from her body,” he said. “I will send our surgeon to tend her. There may be something he can do for her fever.”

Bretton scratched his head. “Is she going to die?”

Grayton shrugged. “It is hard to say,” he muttered, reaching to collect a cup of wine from the center of the table where it lingered with a full pitcher nearby. “I do not think so, but I suppose time will tell.”

Bretton grunted. He thought on his prisoner, a spawn of de Velt. He hated her purely based on her father in contradiction to the lie he told earlier. He had said that he neither hated nor loved her, which was far from the truth. He hated her because she bore the name de Velt. He hated her because the man’s blood ran through her veins, and he hated her because it was her father who had ruined his life. He had abducted her because he knew what it was like to lose those he loved and he wanted de Velt to feel the same pain. Aye, he wanted to hurt Jax, a man he didn’t even know, because Jax had hurt him in the course of his conquest. Twenty-five years of a simmering hatred had matured into a horrible vengeance.