AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Low-pitched and sinister, the question froze her blood. She clamped down on her swollen lip to keep from screaming in terror and pushed her cheek flat against the stone.
He yanked her forward and slammed her hand down onto the dais tabletop. “You will learn right quick, Senna, that I shall be heeded in all things!”
This last boomed in a deafening roar. Grabbing a heavy, flat nutcracker, he smashed the instrument down on her hand.
Pain ripped a blazing path through her body, flashing out to every nerve ending God had created. She slumped to the ground at his feet, huddled and whimpering and fighting tears.
The Irishman lunged for the dais. His roar was silenced as the heavy chains jerked him backward and flung him to the ground. A soldier dropped on top of him, a knee wedged in his chest. Cursing, the soldier smashed an elbow into the Irishman’s jaw, then hauled him back to his feet.
The disturbance drew a brief, furious glance from Rardove, before he swung back around. “I shed your blood now,” he lectured in a calm voice from above, “to teach you the wisdom of heeding me in the future. I do not wish to maim your beautiful mouth, but if it causes more trouble, be you assured, I will.” He dropped to a knee and bent close to her ear. “Do you think I understand you now, Senna?”
She sat perfectly still against the wall, clutching her hand to her neck. Silence, she thought wildly. No more. Not tonight.
So she nodded.
And that simple, surrendering effort took up more space inside her than all the losses all these years, more than she’d ever thought to hold inside her flesh and bones and blood. She was totally empty now. Filled with emptiness.
Rardove gestured to a servant. Gentle hands helped her from the floor. Her fingers throbbed, each wave a fierce, pounding hammer. Fighting the whimpers that would rise in her throat, she unfolded her body, her head held high. A length of hair wobbled free and dangled by her cheekbone.
At the far end of the hall a scuffle broke out and a courier dashed up the steps of the dais.
“My lord! A message has come.”
The baron herded the messenger into a corner. They spoke in rapid whispers, Rardove’s irritable voice rising occasionally to allow bits of the conversation to drift over those nearby.
“Curse the Irish!” Some faint reply came from another member of the group. A series of curses floated away into hushed tones, and the muted gathering waited. Finally the baron turned.
“Continue with the feasting, and take the prisoners back to the cellars. Except for the O’Fáil councilor. Lead him to my office after the others have been quartered.” He leaned to Senna. “You will spend the night in the dye hut, or in my chambers. Either way, you will be working. Tonight, the choice is yours.”
Without a backward glance, he disappeared from the hall.
Senna tottered sideways a step. The front of her skirts bespoke violence: a vivid ruby trail screamed across the emerald fabric. She walked to the long dais table, hyperventilating with pain, fear, and anger.
Anger won out.
She reached for a corner of the long table linen. The servants watched with wrinkled brows and wringing hands as she wrapped it around her palm twice and tugged.
One stepped up to her. He cleared his throat. “May I help bandage your wound?”
“No, thank you.” She smiled sweetly, then jerked the tablecloth off the table with all her might.
Plates went spinning into the air and a tower of fruit and sweets tumbled to the ground. A large oval platter holding an eel dish spun around twice, looked as though it might stay centered on the table, then skittered off, joining the rest of the mess on the floor. The clamor and racket thundered through the hall, drowning the incredulous gasps and shouts of the gathering.
The jug of red wine, oddly, stayed put, heavy enough to withstand the quake.
“Praise God, my lord’s wine is safe,” she murmured. “’Tis a most precious spirit,” she said.
Silence reigned. The servants, soldiers, and liege men gaped. Jaws dropped, heavy boots clomped on the ground as the men shifted nervously. What to do now? The baron had left no orders, although his last actions were clear enough indicators of how he planned to treat any disobedience on the part of his new “wife.”
Still, watching her ramrod-straight back, somehow not a single man was man enough to approach her. A few servants scurried to pick
up the downed items, and another ran to get water.
No one said a word to Senna.
The soldiers, after a spellbindingly long moment of indecision, went on with their task of rounding up the battered Irish warriors and leading them away.
Senna wrapped her bleeding hand in the cloth, leaving seven yards of fabric to trail out behind her, ridiculously excessive, as she walked to the window, a narrow, bailey-facing slit set at shoulder height in the wall.
