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Agnes said, “The baron’s had his pleasures, but not with the likes of us.”
I knew she referred to all three of us. Village-born. Hunger-carved.
“Not yet, anyway,” she added darkly.
“To the hall, then,” Margery said quickly. She took the key from her waist and unlocked the door, opening it into the narrow passageway. “Follow me.”
Our steps echoed along the dark hall. I trembled with cold. With anticipation.
Margery led us quickly through the maze of the keep. But aswe neared the great hall, I found that I couldn’t keep up with her. My limbs grew heavier and heavier, until it seemed like my legs were made of wood. I put my palm out to the wall and felt the scrape of stone on my skin.
“Come now,” Margery said briskly as she pushed me into the vast hall.
Something’s wrong.
“Hannah?” Margery’s voice seemed ever so faint.
My vision narrowed into a tunnel. I felt her hands on my arms, helping me forward. But I was falling down, down, into blackness.
“Come, come,” she was saying in her soft voice. “There’s no need to be afraid.”
But I heard another voice, and this one told me that she was lying.
Something’s wrong, something’s wrong.
My fingers tore at my dress. From somewhere inside the darkness I heard a rising wail. A high, terrible shrieking.
CHAPTER 73
In the flickering torchlight of a great stone hall stands a girl, half naked and screaming.
She’s ripped off her dress, and now she’s wearing nothing but a sleeveless woolen shift and velvet slippers. Goose bumps prickle her pale skin. Her hair, which had been combed and plaited into elaborate coils, spills down dark across her shoulders.
The baron, in his doublet of black wool and his fine black breeches, stands up so abruptly that his chair falls over with a crash. He looks over to the chambermaid. “What’s going on?”
The chambermaid is stricken, white as snow. “Hannah,” she says, fluttering in front of her, waving her hand in front of the girl’s face, “Hannah, what is wrong?”
The lute player by the hearth stares open-mouthed at this howling, half-clothed banshee. Automatically he crosses himself. The girl must be demon-struck.
The baron pulls off his cloak and hurries to try to put it around Hannah’s shoulders. The words that come out of her mouth are jumbled and nonsensical. Something aboutscissors. Something aboutsafety check.
“Bring the physician,” the baron shouts.
The chambermaid scurries off. The lute player stands, grabsa goblet full of wine, and throws all of it down his throat in three enormous gulps.
“I’m supposed to be in the hospital,” Hannah shouts. “Where is the hospital?”
The baron doesn’t understand what she’s talking about—he doesn’t even know whathospitalmeans. He clenches his teeth as he tries to grab her arms, trying to stop her from tearing at her hair and her cheeks. “Hannah, calm down,” he urges uselessly. He looks toward the door. “Where is Goriot, that old bastard?”
The lute player shrugs, then belches, all the while staring at her full lips, her long, nearly naked limbs.
“I need the quiet room!” Hannah screams.
Finally, footsteps sound in the hallway. In comes a rush of black cloaks, the physician and his assistants arrive with their elixirs and leeches. They swarm around Hannah, black as ravens, hushing her, catching her flailing arms.
“Drink this, child, drink this.”
“Hold her down!”
