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Her candle revealed a hallway with wooden doors opening off it. Only the first was open. Trembling with
the fear the rats had imparted, Pony took several hesitating steps. In front of the open door she wavered.
All was darkness. She raised her candle, but it illuminated little. Was there a darker smudge on the
wavering shadows there in the corner? She held her hand to cover her nose and pushed forward.
A slumping figure in the corner flickered into view. The rats were right! Curled in the molding straw, the
body before her eyes was surely dead. Half-naked, with dirty, caked hair and ribs like the teeth of a
harrow, the body was covered with black scabs and dark red, congealed gouges. The smell of rotting
meat mingled with the stench from a wooden bucket in the corner. Dumbly, Pony noted the half-eaten
carcass of some small animal. A rat?
The horror of it all seemed to toll inside her like the bell in the tower of this foul church. Osrick had done
this. Honored hostage? What honor had Osrick? Had Alfred known of this, Val's death? Her hand
moved to her cheek of its own accord and wiped away tears that burst forth, unstoppable. How would
she live, now Val did not?
His head raised. Pony started. Then she ran to him, called his name. She choked, kneeling beside him.
Her hands fluttered about like uncertain birds, afraid to touch him. His eyes squinted up at her.
"Pony?" he croaked.
She sucked in her breath. "Oh, Val& " He was not dead! Which meant that life began to move again.
Her brain began to churn. "We must get you out of here. Guthrum has attacked. Where are the others?"
She glanced over her shoulder, remembering closed doors along the hall.
"Dead." His voice was the creak of an unused hinge. "I made them die."
"Harald?" Pony's heart sank.
"He was the first."
"Osrick." It must have been Osrick, no matter what Val said. And the villain might come down the stairs
at any moment. She grabbed Val's hand. "Can you stand? There is a flight of stairs& "
He shook his head, almost imperceptibly. Weakly, he tugged away. "I will not go."
Pony pressed her lips together. What had she expected? Grimly, she glanced at the open door. She
turned back to Val, taking in the horrible beatings he had gotten, the carcass of the rat, his protruding
ribs. "Oh, yes, you will," she breathed. She looked around. Once she would have recoiled from the only
solution that occurred to her. But she lunged from the room, feeling in the gyrdle under her belly for her
small knife.
It was the work of moments to trundle up the stairs, grab a heavy wooden candlestick from the altar and
stand awkwardly on a bench to cut a length of rope from the bell in the tower a nice, long piece that
had been coiled on the floor. Cutting it, she peered into the night, expecting soldiers to descend upon the
church in ranks, but saw and heard only the muted indications of a village at dinner. Outside, she formed
a loop in the rope and cast it over Slepnir's neck. She walked him into the cavernous church. His hooves
thundered against the stone, but he did not shy or resist. Perhaps he felt the presence of his partner
below. Then she took the other end down the stairs.
She returned to Val's cell, where her nerve nearly failed her. She had never hit beast nor man, even in
anger. She was not angry now, except with Osrick. But as Val roused himself in protest, she trembled
above him, then brought the candlestick down on his crown.
He went limp. Oh, Mothers, I have finished what Osrick started. But he would not have wished to&
She knelt and put her fingers to his throat. His flesh pulsed against her fingers. Now came her trial. She
bent to grab one foot, still booted. Could she drag him to the stairs, so very pregnant as she was? She
put her back into it grunting, and he moved a bit. She stood and gasped. The stairway seemed a league
away. She bent again.
When she finally made the stairs with her limp burden, with fumbling hands she looped the rope under his
arms and made an untidy knot. Slepnir tugged, making it difficult, but somehow she heaved Val over near
the door. She struggled up the stairs herself.
"Now, boy," she whispered. She pictured Val being pulled up the stairs, and Slepnir understood. He
stepped back toward the open door as she pushed against his chest. The rope strained against Val's
weight. Pup nosed the trembling hemp. Back and back Slepnir stepped, through the open door now, the
rope halting, straining, then halting as Val no doubt bumped up the steps. At last she saw him slide into
the doorway. Pup raced back and forth between them eagerly. Yes! They had done it. She hurried to the
nearby wood where she had left First Mare and brought the cart. She tilted it; shortened the rope;
threaded that through the back and over the seat; then positioned Slepnir in front of the cart and urged
him forward. Val was hauled up and in. It was done. Fastening the leather buckles, Pony harnessed
Slepnir to the cart. He would pull while First Mare walked. Had the stallion ever stood in harness?
Pony heaved her bulk into the plank seat. She shushed Pup, who had caught her sense of urgency and
begun barking. Sparing a glance toward the lighted hall inside the faesten walls behind her, she clucked to
the huge chestnut horse. It was all she could do not to urge Slepnir to a gallop. She wanted to be far
away when Osrick discovered his hostage had been stolen.
A messenger, splattered with mud, hurried into the hall where Osrick broke his fast.
"My Lord Bishop," he began, bowing low. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]