Sanctuary of Roses (34 page)

It took him several moments to force the bar
out of its metal slot, and with a grunt, he pushed the door open.
Immediately, a putrid smell burst from the room and Tricky nearly
gagged at the fumes.

“Come, my dear,” he told her, drawing her
into a cave-like chamber lit with an overwhelming number of sconces
burning on the walls.

Tricky’s eyes darted about and fastened on a
long table near one end of the room. A figure lay on it, but was so
shadowed she couldn’t tell even if it was a man or a woman. When
Tavis tugged her arm—the man was like a small child faced with a
room of sweets—she was forced to follow him to the opposite side of
the chamber.

The smell seemed to have lessened, so Tricky
could breathe more freely…but when she was faced with the snake
heads and skeletons of small rodents, and jars and bottles of
foul-looking liquid and slimy solids, she felt her head grow light
and she swayed against Tavis.

“What is it, my little chick?” he asked,
leering down at her, one hand on either side of her hips, trapping
her against the table. Suddenly, she felt very frightened and it
was all Tricky could do to keep her face blank of fear.

“Naught’n, my lord,” she told him. “I
betripped m’self and nearly fell on your work here….” Swallowing
hard, she reached up to trail a single finger down the side of his
face. “I cannot believe you know all of this! Tell me about what
you do with these…things.”

It was the right response. Tavis nearly
clapped his hands with glee and, towing her about the laboratory,
pointed out everything from instruments of extraction—she did not
ask what they extracted—and devices designed to boil and purge and
grind and beat the ingredients to whatever potion they might be
creating.

When they made their way over to the side
where the figure lay, unmoving, upon the table, Tavis paused to
look into Tricky’s eyes. “This,” he told her, a slim hand with one
long fingernail pointing at the body, whose face was turned away,
“will be our salvation. She will hear the Word of God, she will
praise Him and serve Him and will be our salvation!”

He stared down at her, his breath rising and
falling, and as if in a trance, reached out a hand to touch the
figure that lay supine. Tricky stepped forward to get a look at her
face.

It was Madelyne….and she appeared to be
alive!

“What—who—is that?” she asked boldly,
slipping her hand into the crook of Tavis’s arm.

He appeared to shake from his trance and
turned to look at her, the dreaminess gone from his eyes. “’Tis the
daughter of my master. She is recently returned to us from days
serving God in an abbey. My master has decreed that she shall serve
God here, for the good of my master.”

Tavis chuckled again, twirling against her
in his glee. “She has been wed, and my master fears that she has
been tainted by the touch of an impure man.” Tavis continued, his
face shriveling into a dark mask, “Despite her imperfections, now,
my master will not allow me to touch her…though I burn to do so.”
He turned to look at Tricky again, lust glazing his face. “I shall
have to settle for the likes of you…but I vow, ’twill be to your
enjoyment as well.”

Tricky swallowed, her tight throat dry and
tasting of bile. Tavis, who appeared to have no concerns that she
would carry tales, explained, “We wait only until she has been
cleansed—exorcised—from the repugnance of coupling. My master has
many ways of removing the evil from within her.” He fingered a
long, slender whip and looked at her. “She will not see the light
of day again, for she must serve in silence and piety and for my
master only.”

Tricky blanched and terror clawed up her
spine.

“He plans to wait for another moon to be
certain she does not carry her husband’s child…and if she does,
aye, he must relieve her of that burden so that she might carry a
more important one.”

Tricky slipped from his grasp as he flung
his arms wide to encompass the chamber, the realm, the earth…and
she stepped backward. If there was any chance that she could sneak
away….

“Where are you going?” Tavis turned, his
voice booming in command.

He lunged for her and she side-stepped,
crashing into a table and knocking a mortar and pestle to the
floor. “I—I must find my brother…he will worry about me,” Tricky
said. “I would find him, then return to watch you at your work,”
she added, resting a hip suggestively against the table. Purposely
breathing heavily, she forced her breasts to rise and fall just
beneath his nose and watched as his attention floundered between
her chest and the work in the laboratory.

“Nay…I will have a message sent to him. You
may not leave yet.” He reached and closed a hand around her breast,
then his other hand pulled her toward him so that her hips slammed
into his. She felt an unmistakable bulge thrusting between them and
her heart began to race.

Before she knew it, she was pushed back
against a table and Tavis had yanked her skirts up to her thighs.
Panicked, Tricky began to kick and pound at him, but his weight,
though slender, was strong, and bore her to the table. His groping
hands pinched at her, causing great stabs of pain to shoot through
her breasts. She began to sob, kicking, fighting, rolling her head
from side to side as her legs were forced apart.

Suddenly, the door swung open and a voice
boomed into the room. “Master Tavis! You are needed urgently up in
the hall!”

Tavis paused only for a moment, then
returned to Tricky. “Nay, I am occupied, de Masin….I’ll be there in
a bit.”

“’Tis one of Mal Verne’s men—he is
here!”

That news caused Tavis to straighten and
whip his head about to look over his shoulder. Tricky’s heart
pounded in her throat as she struggled anew. Clem! Did he mean
Clem?

“Help me with this and I’ll be up.” He
stepped away from her, and Tricky slammed her knees together and
tried to roll away, but he held her firm. Leering close to her
face, he said, “I will return to you, my little coquette….and you
will not only watch us make history, but you will enjoy it as
well!”

Tricky gulped under the hand that had closed
around her neck and looked away from his eyes that had turned from
soft and velvety to pure, hard lust. The other man came over and
they tied her wrists and arms together, forcing her to slump onto a
stool against the wall near Madelyne’s still body.

Tavis raced out of the room, humming
gleefully, but the other man stayed behind. Tricky watched as he
approached Madelyne, stiffening as she saw him bend toward her
face.

“Madelyne,” he whispered, reaching to touch
her face. “Madelyne…are you awake?” He glanced at Tricky and in his
face she saw concern. “Do you not speak or I’ll leave you here for
Tavis,” he snapped at her, then returned to the prone figure before
him.

“Madelyne, can you hear me? Your husband’s
man has arrived…he’s in the keep and has been found out.” He
glanced at Tricky, who gasped.

“Clem! They have Clem?” she asked,
struggling to loosen her bonds.

The man strode over to her, glanced at the
closed door, then glared down at her. “Who are you and what do you
know about this? Speak, woman, for we haven’t much time!”

“I came here with Clem…we were to find a way
in and….” she stopped, gulping. Was this a trick?

“What, woman? What is it? If I am to help
you, I must know all!” Angry spittle came from his mouth and
urgency curved in lines about his lips.

From the table, Madelyne groaned. “Tricky?”
Her voice was barely audible, but her maid heard and understood.
“Seton?”

“Aye, Madelyne.” Seton rushed to her side,
stroking her face and offering her a sip of water. “Sweetling, they
have one of your husband’s men and will no doubt be scouring the
keep for the rest of them. I must get a message to them….”

“Tricky…tell him….” she moaned. “He…can…be
trusted. He…can…help.”

Tricky glanced at Madelyne and then back at
the man called Seton, who now stood glowering over her. She had no
choice. Clem was taken. They would miss their meeting with
Gavin…and this man might be able to help. Madelyne trusted him. “We
were to meet Gavin and his men at the oak tree behind the hill on
the west side of the keep at sun down,” she told him. “We were to
find a way to sneak them into the keep. I know nothing else.”

Seton nodded. “There are more men. Aye, that
is good.” He returned to Madelyne. “What can I tell your husband
that he will trust me? I’ll meet him and bring him in. We will get
you safe from here tonight.”

Tricky could hear her mistress’s sigh from
her own perch and wished she could minister to her. What had they
done to her?

“Quickly, Madelyne….they will come back at
any moment!” He leaned toward her, and although Tricky could not
hear what Maddie told him, he pulled back, nodding, and
satisfied.

Just as he turned away, the door from the
stairway flung open and in stumbled Clem, arms bound, followed by
Fantin and Tavis.

* * *

Gavin paced in the wood just in sight of the
oak tree, his stomach twisting in nauseating knots. The sun was
nearly gone, and no sign of Tricky or Clem. He clenched his fists,
knowing that their failure to appear was a sign that something had
gone severely wrong.

The gray shadows were long and just turning
to black when he saw the shift of a shadow from the hill beyond the
oak tree. It was too slight to be bulky Clem, and much too tall to
be Patricka. Gavin clenched his hands over his sword and waited,
holding his breath.

“Mal Verne?” The sound of his name wafting
over the cool summer air reached his ears. “I come to help.”

Gavin did not move. He held his breath
again.

“Mal Verne.” The man moved closer to the oak
tree, his hands held out in front of him so that even in the
darkness, Gavin could see that he held no weapons. “Your man, Clem,
is taken…and the girl is taken as well.” He paused as though to
measure any effect his words might have. Gavin remained silent,
though he took a silent step forward.

“I’ve spoken to Madelyne,” the man
continued. “My name is Seton de Masin….she knows me from when she
was a child…. Her message is that you may trust me. You will know
this by the words I am now to speak: Madelyne gave you prayer beads
made from rose petals when you first came to the abbey, and you
still carry them with you. And she means you to know that she loves
you.”

Gavin stepped from the shadows, his
suspicions allayed. He had told no one about those beads. Even
Madelyne had not known he still carried them until after they were
wed and sharing a chamber. “De Masin.” He thrust his hand out and
they shook. “She is alive? Is she hurt?”

De Masin hesitated, and Gavin’s stomach
pitched. “She is alive, she can speak, but she is injured. I could
not keep them…from her…last night. She will be well if we can get
her from that place.”

Gavin struggled to control the frantic
pictures and thoughts in his head. He must focus and stay clear
headed if he had any chance of saving her. “Can you get me inside?
I will have Fantin’s head on a platter. Nay, he will die a painful
death…slow and painful….”

“Aye. How many men do you have?”

“Five, plus myself and my man within.”

Seton nodded once, then beckoned. “Come, let
us go. We have very little time.”

Twenty-Nine

Madelyne forced her eyes open.

The acrid burn of candles, other smells she
did not wish to define, and the throb of pain throughout her body
assaulted her senses. The taste of the last bitter, putrid liquid
that had been forced down her throat still surged in her empty
belly. She couln’t keep back a moan, and was rewarded when her
father’s face came into focus in front of her own.

Stifling a shriek, she closed her eyes and
turned away from his face, the image now implanted on her brain:
empty eyes with tiny pinpoints of black in the center, a wide,
grinning mouth, and a mass of white hair as uncontrolled as the
joyous laugh that erupted from his lips.

She was against the wall again, taken from
her prone position on the table and re-strapped to the cold stone.
The rough edges of the blocks behind her chafed her bruised skin,
and her arms, stretched to their limits, had no feeling in them.
She could barely keep her head raised, but with an effort she
lifted it as Fantin’s laugh stopped abruptly.

“What is it you say?” He turned and screamed
at someone. “That cannot be!”

Madelyne tried to focus and looked around
the room, her muscles cramping, her arms jerking involuntarily. She
vaguely remembered speaking with Seton again, and talking of Gavin
and her love for him…a sob clogged her throat that had naught to do
with the pain in her bones, but the pain in her heart. She might
never see her husband again.

As she looked about the chamber, Madelyne
froze, staring in disbelief. Tricky? Dear Lord, how did Tricky come
to be here? Her maid was slumped on a stool, her clothing mussed,
dirty and torn, and her hair straggling about her.

Fantin screamed more profanities to some
unseen messenger, then, with one last glance at his prisoner,
turned to rush from the chamber—his robes flowing behind him.
Tricky and Madelyne were alone and safe, for a time, from Fantin’s
rage.

“Tricky!” Madelyne hissed.

Her maid shook her head as though to clear
the fog and slowly turned to look at her. “Maddie,” she whispered.
“Are you all right?”

“I am alive and thankful to be so,” she
returned. “And you? How came you here?”

Tricky explained quickly, and then gestured
to a dark corner. “They have Clem over there. I cannot tell if he
is hurt. He’s not moved since they hit him on the head.”

“Can you move on that stool?” Every word was
an effort, but Madelyne forced them out. For the first time, she
felt a ray of hope that escape might be possible. “Those shards
from the broken bowls…mayhap you could cut….” her voice gave out,
the words would not come…but Tricky knew what she meant to say.