Sunder (26 page)

Lord Cædda had seemingly brushed aside all of Sigbert’s concerns about the cruelty of twenty lashes in the time before he and Redwald arrived. But as Thorstein watched his master now, he saw that the business-oriented logic of his tanner had taken effect.

“What say you, Thorstein?”

Cædda’s question caught him off guard and Thorstein felt his eyes instinctively drift back to Deorca. She looked so small sitting on the floor like that, her eyes fixed downwards as she fidgeted with her loose braid; the style made her look younger, softer.

He blinked hard to bring himself out of his trance and returned his focus to Cædda’s question.  He couldn’t be sure of course, but Cædda, like everyone else, probably knew about what happened last night; perhaps he had even been watching. Thorstein had no position or right to give advice to his lord, so why was he asking? 
Is he mocking me?

“I agree with Redwald, My Lord,” he said, surprising even himself with his confident tone. “As my Lady Annis gave Deorca to Redwald as an apprentice, he should be the one to mete out her punishment.”

Annis’ looked positively apoplectic, but just when she was about to explode, Cædda held up a hand to silence her.

“She is still my slave, Redwald.” He slid his eyes smoothly to Redwald with the slightest of smiles. “Unless of course, you would like to buy her freedom so that she may be fully in your service as an apprentice?”

“Cædda!”

“Be silent, Woman!” Cædda snapped suddenly.

A hush fell over the room briefly.

“My Lord,” Sigbert offered softly, “you were so kind to free Thorstein for saving Lady Annis that terrible night. Would it not be just to free Deorca for saving your son?”

“Hardly a fair comparison,” Garrick muttered from his corner. Thorstein could swear he heard Redwald growl under his breath.

“Thorstein has been honest and faithful since coming into my service and earned his freedom a thousand times over, Father. You know this. Deorca has not proven any such loyalty.” Cædda did not speak angrily, but there was a finality to his tone. “She will be mine until such a time as Redwald chooses to buy her from me. However…” he cast a meaningful glance to Annis, who was starting to smile again. “Redwald is correct that he should be the one to flog her. If Garrick were to give twenty lashes as you may wish, Annis, then Redwald would lose more wages due to Deorca being incapacitated.

“As such, Redwald will choose the whip and will choose the number of lashes. But, let it be known that Deorca is
not
being flogged for your lost wages, Tanner. She is being flogged for running from her lawful owner.”

Redwald nodded, clearly satisfied. “I’ll be back directly with the whip.” He turned his head toward Deorca. “You’ll be ready by the post when I return, Woman. I’ve work to do and I’ve not yet had breakfast and I’d thank you not to make me wait about.”

At that, Deorca looked up and gave the barest of smiles. “I would never dream of it, Master Redwald.”

The old man turned on his heel, leaving Thorstein alone in the doorway. If he left now, would anyone question him? He did not relish the idea of watching her beat, even though she most certainly deserved it. He had been so angry at her last night; he supposed he still was. But still, he did not wish to see her flogged.

Without requesting to be dismissed, Thorstein turned away from them and quietly walked toward the exit.

“You can take that dress off now, I suppose.”  The sneering voice of Annis halted him mid-stride.

Thorstein whirled around and backtracked toward the door to see Sigbert and Deorca, the both of them frozen in horror, staring slack-jawed at Lady Annis. Her eyes wide and her cheeks still tinged with the pink of anger, a hideous expression resembling delight had drifted onto her face.

“Annis…” Cædda sighed in exasperation.

“The dress is wool and will blunt the whip.” Annis snatched her arm out from under her blankets so she could point accusingly at Deorca. “If she were getting twenty like I asked, it would make no nevermind, but as she will only receive five, that dress will come off!” Annis slid her eyes over to Garrick. “There are only good Christian men here; the slave needn’t have a care for her modesty.”

Throughout the entire meeting, Deorca had been uncharacteristically unresponsive. In addition to not speaking, which was unusual enough, she had given none of her famous glares or twisted facial expressions. But now at Annis’ piggish mandate to disrobe in full view of men, Deorca looked directly at Cædda and morphed her face very clearly into a whole sentence:
I told you, didn’t I?
Astonishingly, Cædda reciprocated—resting his eyes on Deorca’s face. He looked…chastened.

“It would hardly do to hail her as a hero by night then flog her naked by day,” Cædda muttered, clearly as uncomfortable as the rest of the men. Even Garrick, who had been sputtering in anger at Deorca for months, looked decidedly ill at ease. On the rare occasion a woman was publicly flogged, she was always fully clothed, even if her crime was harlotry. Still, it was hard to argue with Annis’ logic. The wool dress was made to withstand the Wessex wind, and it would likely take all five of her lashes to break through to her skin.

“Can I assume you have on a shift beneath your dress?” Cædda asked softly.

Biting her bottom lip and casting her eyes downward, Deorca only nodded.

“Well then, that settles it. Remove your dress, remain in your shift.” He waved dismissively at her and started walking out the door, but Thorstein, and likely everyone else, heard him mutter to Annis: “Hopefully that will allow a sufficient amount of bloodspill for your tastes.”

At her husband’s rebuke, Annis turned a revolting shade of purple and turned her glare directly at Thorstein. “Get out. All of you.” Then she jerked her head over to Deorca. “We will meet you outside.”

Garrick shrugged and left immediately, a ghost of a smile touching his face as he departed. But Sigbert did not move. His feet remained planted in the earth in front of Deorca, as if he could somehow shield her from what was coming.

To his great irritation, Thorstein was seized by the impulse to stand beside the priest, to help form a wall around her.
She isn’t yours anymore
, he admonished himself with a disgusted shake of his head.
She isn’t yours to protect.

“Father,” Thorstein called, more sharply than he intended. “Let us leave Deorca to prepare.”

The hard look that Father had given him last night in the empty Great Hall returned to his face, but he did not offer a retort. He reached down and gently squeezed Deorca’s arm and she smiled nervously back at him. It was a warm smile, one filled with affection—a smile she had never given to Thorstein.

As Father walked out the door, Thorstein took one last look at the deflated figure of Deorca, who looked sadly back at him, all traces of the smile gone.

She was never yours. She was always his
. The thought was cruel and it caused a sting in his eyes, but he blinked it away, acknowledging the truth of it. The last of his anger drained away and, as he turned his back and walked out the door, he felt sadness sink into his chest to replace it. He still did not want to see her flogged, but he walked out to the post anyway. He would go to lend his support, for he was her friend. Only her friend.

***

Isabella watched Thorstein stalk out the door, his face a mask of sadness. Even as he moved out of her sight, Isabella was still overcome with an illogical sensation of shame.
It’s not your fault. You did nothing to lead him on.

“Lover’s quarrel?” Annis hissed from her bed.

The two women sat in opposite corners of the room, both looking tired and worn down with unkempt hair and bloodshot eyes. Isabella, though exhausted from everything that happened, had not been able to sleep. She kept waking up in fits from dreams of her mother, just like the one in the woods. Isabella could swear she could still smell her shampoo when she awoke. Annis’ lack of sleep was most likely due to the pain of her injuries. Isabella swallowed hard as she realized that she would be having exactly the same problem tonight.

“No, My Lady,” Isabella tried to sound sweet as her voice shook. “As you may have heard, Thorstein proposed marriage last night in an honorable display of friendship. Of course I am wholly unsuitable for him, so we agreed it would be best for him to find someone else. Perhaps our lord has a candidate in mind.”

A shadow of confused suspicion crossed Annis’ face, leaving Isabella to smile slightly as she stood up.
Yes, I am being polite to you. If for no other reason than my promise to Wyrtgeorn, I will be kind.

Isabella busied herself pulling her heavy dress over her head, turning away from Annis as she did so. The old Isabella would have faced Annis, staring her down as she took off the dress in a display of defiance. But there would be no more of that—no more cutting off her nose to spite her face. As she stared into the wall, folding her dress neatly into a bundle, she had a pang of concern there would be a crowd gathered when she emerged from the Great Hall. Had Annis invited the town to observe? Would they even come, given their vocal support of her last night? Shuddering in the cold morning air, Isabella prayed her whipping would be a private affair. It was bad enough she would have Garrick leering at her the whole time.

She heard Annis breathing loudly behind her.
Is she trying to stand up by herself?
Of course in Annis’ condition, that was unwise, so Isabella turned around, determined to help her stand.

“My Lady, let me—Jesus Christ!”

Annis was already standing, completely naked, her hair falling over her shoulders in frizzy copper waves.

“I thought you might like to see what he did to me,” Annis gasped out, her chest heaving, either from the exertion it took to rise from her bed or from the crimson fury that shook her whole body.

As angry as Annis had plainly been through the whole debate over the number of lashes she would receive, Isabella saw now that she had actually been holding the majority of it back. The deep furious blush that so often tinted Etienne’s face when he became angry completely covered Annis from her forehead down to the tops of her breasts. Her belly was still distended from her only recently ended pregnancy and her thighs bore smears of dark blood stains.

Isabella’s sharp inhale at seeing the bloated, stretch-marked naked body morphed into a full throated gasp as Annis turned around, showing her back. Both shoulder blades had deep angry red gouges running down them, several of them still oozing. How many lashes were there? Isabella could not even begin to count them.
What in God’s name would have made Emilio do this?

Words failed her. What could she say? Her revulsion for Annis buckled under the weight of her pity, her guilt, and her vision blurred with hot tears.

Having watched the exasperated exchange between Cædda and Annis, Isabella had a moment of clarity regarding Annis’ position here. She remembered Redwald yelling at Annis that day she came back to the tanning shack to bring Isabella to church, and wondering if it was because tanners were exceedingly valuable, or because Annis was profoundly disliked. She saw now that it was the latter. Even though she was injured and had just produced his fourth son, even as Cædda met her outlandish demands, he still hated his wife, and
everyone
in town knew it.

Now, in addition to everything else, she—the wife of a Thane—had been horribly beaten. For no reason. Emilio could have taken that crucifix without touching her, without even talking to her. But he hadn’t.

To do something like this, he would have had to hate Annis more than Isabella had ever hated anyone.
Maybe I do deserve twenty lashes.

“Save your tears,” a harsh laugh accompanied Annis’ rebuke, and she turned back around to face Isabella. “Whether you ordered him to do this or not, this is your fault. All of it!”

No, it’s your fault! You did something to provoke him!
The hateful thoughts clanged against her teeth and hammered her tongue, begging to be let loose, but she shook her head and bit down on her bottom lip, breathing deep as she pushed them away.
She is Wyrtgeorn’s mother, and he loves her.

“You are right, My Lady.” Isabella swallowed the bile in her throat as best she could. “I deserve this punishment, and I do not wish to cause you any more pain.” She stepped gingerly toward her, one step at a time in case Annis screeched an order to retreat. “What would you have me do?” she asked imploringly. “If you wish me to take vows at Shaftesbury Abbey, I will do it. Tell me what you want me to do.”

Barely an arm’s length was left between them when Isabella stopped. An impulse moved her to grasp Annis’ shoulder, but her bulging sweaty nudity stifled the gesture.

For a moment, Annis seemed to think about Isabella’s offer. Her brow furrowed for just a moment before the hate flared in her eyes once more. She looked at Isabella and leaned forward so her pendulous breasts grazed Isabella’s arm and their noses were practically touching.

“I wish you to die.”

The vicious whisper and the flying spittle that accompanied it froze Isabella in a horrified realization. It was not simply a matter of Annis needing someone to be kind to her or of proving herself trustworthy. No, there would be no peace, no satisfying her. No matter what Isabella did or how perfectly she obeyed, it was now set in Annis’s mind that everything that had ever gone wrong was
all
Isabella’s fault. The clear-eyed insanity flashing in Annis’ dilated pupils flooded Isabella with the impulse to run as fast as she could to Thetford, to find Nils Karlsson and the get the hell out of Shaftesbury. Because now she saw it. She understood. Annis meant to kill her. She really did.