Chapter 36
Keelin regained consciousness slowly. Her body seemed to be floating for an indeterminable length of time before she realized that she was actually lying on a pallet. Her peripheral vision was too dim for her to see what the chamber she was lying in looked like. Keelin's head felt as if it was made of lead. Her tongue was swollen and her mouth so unbearably dry that she actually felt pain when she attempted to move her tongue out to moisten her parched, cracked lips. She tried to move her arms but her first attempt failed. She lay still for several moments before she succeeded in moving her right arm just the barest inch. The effort exhausted her and she closed her eyes and fell back into a short stupor.
Before she opened her eyes a second time, she became aware of the sound of voices in the chamber with her. At first they were foggy and indistinct but as her mind began to work, she realized that one of the voices belonged to Mordrid.
A shot of pure adrenaline and primal fear surged through her body. Her eyes flew open, her vision was crystal clear, and she was able to move her body. Her head throbbed almost unbearably as she lifted it from the pallet but she persisted, determined to flee Mordrid's presence. Keelin's painful motions did not go long undetected and she had only succeeded in lifting herself halfway into a sitting position before Mordrid was suddenly upon her. She would have screamed but her throat was too dry for her to make a sound. She froze in place and stared up at him in horror.
"Ah, it seems our guest is finally awake," Mordrid said, smiling demonically at her. He let a string of French phrases out over his shoulder, aiming them back toward the person with whom he had been speaking when she had awakened. Keelin was able to move her head enough to see that it was the man who had nearly strangled her.
"Where have you taken me?" she croaked. Speech was nearly impossible due to the extreme dry state of her mouth. Her tongue felt large and clumsy and her words were strangely slurred, as if she had drunk too much wine.
Mordrid gestured and a third man, who was obviously a servant, stepped forward and placed a goblet in Mordrid's hand. Mordrid's mouth curved into a vicious smile once more and he held the goblet out to Keelin.
"Some water, my lady?" he asked, his voice mocking. There was a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
"I would rather die of thirst," was Keelin's dusty reply.
To
her surprise, Mordrid threw his head back and laughed. "Ah, yes, now I remember why I found the
pursuit of you so fascinating. You were
always so quick to reject my advances,
although I find you rather more spirited now than you were when I saw you last. I like it."
Keelin was so repulsed that
she felt sick to her stomach. "Where
have you taken me?" she repeated.
"Why, I have brought you on a royal visit. I thought it only fitting that the future Queen of England be brought to visit His and Her Majesties of France."
Keelin felt an icy finger of fear on her spine. How had he managed to bring her all this way without her notice? She realized that she must have been drugged for days, which would explain her pounding head, dry mouth, and dragging limbs.
"Traitor," Keelin said, wishing she were able to spit on his feet. "Most vile traitor! The king will have your head for this."
Mordrid merely smiled. "On the contrary, my dear lady, 'tis I who shall have the king's head and you shall help me to capture it."
"I shall do no such thing," Keelin declared. She somehow managed to reach up and dash the goblet from Mordrid's hand, splashing herself almost as much as she splashed him. The cool liquid soaked into her gown and she felt like weeping for want of it. She would not, however, show such weakness before Mordrid. "I shall not let you destroy England. I would give my life for her."
"Ah, but 'tis not for you to decide. When your love receives my ransom demands he will have no choice but to obey. Such is the folly of love. You would gladly sacrifice yourself for king and country but he will not allow you that choice. He will not sacrifice you."
Keelin felt a black, intense sense of hatred toward Mordrid. "You truly are the spawn of Satan," she declared to him.
"Welcome to my lair," he hissed, bending over and putting his face directly before hers in one swift and graceful movement.
It was all Keelin could do not to flinch. "I care not what you do to me. You may torture me, you may kill me, but I shall never give you the satisfaction of begging for your mercy. I will gladly and freely give my life for my country."
"So foolish. No harm will come to you at present. Indeed, you shall be very well cared for until the king arrives. However, once he is here to witness it, you will suffer grave pain."
Keelin realized with a dawning horror that Mordrid intended to lure Rhain and his knights to their deaths using her as his pawn. He meant to draw Rhain into his web and then force him to watch as he tortured and killed her. He was too much of a coward, too evil to meet Rhain on the battlefield as an honorable man would do. The thought of Rhain having to watch as Mordrid brutalized her caused Keelin more fear than she had ever felt. It would be easy for Mordrid to simply kill her and Rhain but it would be empty for him. He would not be satisfied until he had tortured them using every possible means. In spite of her terror, Keelin knew she had to be strong for her country, for her people, and for Rhain.
"You do not frighten me," she told Mordrid. "You may punish my body as you wish but my soul shall be free. Death does not frighten me for I know I shall find my reward. 'Tis you who should fear your own death, you who should tremble at the thought of the final judgment."
"That is a pretty speech indeed," he sneered. "But your God does not scare me. Your God cannot help you now. Your God is dead."
Keelin responded by closing her eyes and folding her hands in an attitude of prayer. She turned her thoughts inward until she ceased to hear Mordrid's voice, until she heard only her own internal voice praying for the safety of her beloved and his men. She prayed that God would grant Rhain the wisdom to stay out of Mordrid's trap and that He would grant Rhain the knowledge that Keelin would sacrifice herself willingly, that there was nothing that would destroy her more surely than to see Rhain come for her and meet his end at Mordrid's hand.
The prayers continued until Mordrid grew enraged and was forced to leave the chamber lest he damage her before his plans had been seen through. When she had finished praying, she saw that a tray had been left behind for her. She stared at it for a long moment, desperately trying to decide if she should drink and eat or if she should let herself die of thirst or starvation. The decision was agonizing. Her will to live was strong but, more importantly, she had to decide whether her death or her life would pose the greater threat to Rhain and to England. If she lived he might fall into Mordrid's trap and attempt to rescue her but if she died he might rush forth in a blind rage at Mordrid. In the end she decided that if Rhain were to attempt to pursue Mordrid, he would do so in a more rational manner if believed her to be alive than he might if he were to believe her dead. She became certain that she needed to remain alive and that her senses needed to remain acute so that she could do everything in her power to stop Mordrid. Her decision made, Keelin took the tray and ate and drank her fill.
*****
The English king's men searched long and hard each and every day in an attempt to find their future queen. Rhain wanted to be as positive of her whereabouts as possible before he even attempted a rescue. Although it caused him great anguish, Rhain listened to Edwyn's calm suggestions that he prepare himself as well as possible for the rescue. It was his instinct to race right off to the castle to rescue Keelin but the rational part of him knew that Edwyn was correct. Mordrid wanted Rhain to rush to the castle in disarray and attempt to storm it in order to liberate his beloved. Were the king to take this course of action, it would be very simple for Mordrid and the French king to simply sit back and pick their English enemy off with ease.
Still, in spite of Edwyn's calm demeanor, Rhain knew that his friend was very worried and very anxious about Keelin's state. It was obvious to Rhain that, although the two were not very close as of yet, Edwyn liked Keelin and he had an enormous amount of respect for her. Rhain knew that his friend was aware of the impact that Keelin's capture had not only on the king and his mother but also the entire kingdom of England. It was a severe blow to the morale of the people and the knights and it was doubtless that people would begin to question the security of a kingdom from which the future queen could be plucked with apparent ease from the thick walls of the castle.
This last fact was the one that constantly nagged at Rhain's mind. He still could not explain how or why Keelin would have left the castle walls. He had been very explicit in his letters to her expressing his desire that she remain behind the castle's walls at all times. Rhain knew that she would not defy his wishes unless there had been extenuating circumstances and he was determined to discover just what those circumstances could possibly be.
King Ludwig was incensed at this latest development. He sent Rhain a long and very sympathetic letter in which he declared the conviction that Mordrid was a cowardly miscreant of the worst kind and in which he expressed his concerns and his sympathies for the pain that Rhain must be suffering at the capture of his beloved. Ludwig's army fought with renewed vigor, trouncing the French soundly in every battle and rapidly capturing a series of towns in a sequence of important battles. His army was coming in from the west while Rhain's came in from the east and Ludwig sent Rhain his assurances that they would meet and that his army would be at Rhain's disposal for the storming of the French palace in Paris.
Rhain also triumphed in the war at sea. His fleet had soundly trounced the Spanish armada, sending them fleeing for safety. The English fleet had sunk roughly eighty percent of the French Spanish ships and had captured about fifteen percent of those they had not sunk. The few that got away were in very poor shape, some of them with sails ablaze as they fled from the English ships. Rhain now controlled nearly every port in France and his fleet had immediately set up a blockade, preventing Spain from sending relief in the form of men and supplies.
It was only a matter of time before Rhain and Ludwig would press in on the French king and Rhain knew that the king of France must know it as well. He had never known the French king to be a particularly brave man and so he concluded that Mordrid, in his blood lust, must have convinced the French king to fight to the very death. Rhain took comfort in the thought that Mordrid was blinded by his madness and that he had the French king under his thumb. Rhain's greatest advantage was to remain calm and to plan each move carefully. The cracks in the French kingdom were beginning to show in earnest. In most of the towns he and Ludwig had won, the peasants had scarcely put up a fight. They were starving and living in deplorable conditions, their streets overridden by pestilence and disease. They were willing to tolerate and possibly embrace any king who might be able to offer them some relief from their misery.
And so with each passing day, Rhain was able to concentrate more and more on his plans for the storming of the castle and the subsequent rescue of Keelin. He knew it would be dangerous to underestimate the strength of the French king but the war had been intense and expensive up to this point and Rhain felt fairly confident that the castle, although certainly closely guarded, would not be under particularly heavy guard. The greatest challenge, of course, would be to get inside the castle. Rhain did not even allow himself to think that if this was not done quickly, Keelin would probably be killed before he even had a chance to rescue her. The thought was always at the back of his mind but he knew that if he focused on it he would run mad.
Edwyn had dispatched an extensive network of spies with the mission of gathering as much information about the French castle as possible. These men were disbursed throughout the kingdom. He also saw to it that a special group was formed to handle the questioning of French citizens and the interrogation of prisoners of war. This group would coordinate all interviews and would gather and compile all of the information that was gleaned from the interviews and interrogations. In the space of three days, Rhain suddenly found a wealth of information at his fingertips, information that would help him rescue Keelin.
"Sources indicate that important prisoners are usually held in the western tower," Edwyn said. A schematic of the French castle lay on the table in Rhain's military tent. It was already very detailed and grew more so every day with each new bit of information they uncovered. Rhain and Edwyn now had a very good idea of the layout of the castle and they were devising the speediest route through the castle and to where they believed Keelin was being held.
"Aye but she may also be in the dungeon for all we know," Rhain said. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, pacing back and forth in front of the table. "We do not know where Mordrid and the king are keeping her. They may be keeping her where they have kept other important prisoners or they may be keeping her somewhere else entirely. They must have known that we would be able to gather this information."
"That may be but the fact is that the western tower is the most well-fortified in the entire castle. They would require very few men to guard it effectively, which must make it a most appealing spot for both Mordrid and the king. They cannot have afforded to keep behind a large contingent of guards for the sole purpose of guarding your lady."
"Nay, that is where I do not agree. This war is almost nothing more than a prelude to Mordrid. The French king may not see it that way but he is under Mordrid's power. Mordrid would love to win England but he wishes for nothing more than to know that he has tortured both me and Keelin in the vilest manner imaginable."
"Do you believe her to be held elsewhere in the castle?" Edwyn asked.
At that instant a page burst into the tent. He held a letter in his hand which he hastily passed to Rhain. The boy bowed to Rhain and Edwyn before making his retreat.
Rhain turned the letter over and immediately recognized the wax seal of the minister who was in charge of espionage for England. Rhain ripped through the seal and hastily fumbled with the pages, anxious to see what information was held within. He read quietly for a moment before a smile passed over his face, at which point he handed Edwyn the letter. Edwyn gave his friend a quizzical look before scanning the missive. Edwyn too began to smile.
"So the west tower it is," Rhain said, shaking his head in wonder. "She is a most formidable woman."
"Indeed she is. To have had the presence of mind to somehow hang a patch of her gown from one of the arrow slits…" Edwyn's voice trailed off as he shook his head. Rhain could hear the admiration in his friend's voice.
"It would appear that she anticipated our problems," Rhain told him.
The two men knew that Keelin had been wearing a crimson gown on the day she had been captured. The queen had told the investigating knights and those knights had found a bit of fabric on one of the trees in the forest. It appeared that a bit of Keelin's gown had been torn off as she struggled against her captors. According to the missive Rhain had just received, one of the English spies who had been surveilling the French castle had noticed a bit of red fabric hanging from one of the arrow slits in the western tower. It was a tiny bit of fabric, so small that it almost escaped the spy's notice. He was certain that it must have been strategically placed there for it was far smaller than any of the banners that adorned the rest of the castle.
"She has given us a valuable piece of information," Edwyn said.
"At least we shall have one advantage in our attempts to rescue her," Rhain said. "Now that we know where she is being held, we need a plan of attack. I will need all of my best strategists here tonight. We shall come up with a plan to rescue my lady and to defeat Mordrid and France once and for all."
