Chapter 27: Mistress Mary
Late-afternoon sun streaming in the window woke Logan up. He lay in the bed for a long time, luxuriating in its softness. He hadn't lain in a bed for almost a month now. Two weeks' travel from the capital to the border, three days there, two days on the road dragged along by Julian, and then a week sleeping on the cold, hard stone floor of Gallas's dungeon. He thought rather enviously of the soft, comfortable bed Jubilee must have slept in with Julian, and ground his teeth in anger again. Traitor.
The thought of her reminded him sharply that he needed to reach the King, had to warn him that there was a traitor in court and he had to return as soon as possible to the palace. He sighed, struggled to sit upright and reach for the stolen clothes he saw draped neatly over the side of a nearby chair…and found his body refused to obey him. Again.
He lay back on the bed. Of all the times his body could have picked to betray him, here and now was not the time. And where was here? He stared around the room. It was furnished with the bed, a small table, a chair, and a small chest for storing clothes; that was all. He tried to remember how he had gotten here, tried to remember who he might be, but
The door at the far end of the room opened, and a little blond head peeked in. He stared at the brown eyes for a long moment, she looking at his, and then the door closed and he heard her calling "Ma!"
A few seconds later, the door opened and a plump matron came in, wiping her hands briskly on a towel. "Finally awake, eh?" she said kindly, reaching down to touch his forehead. "The fever's broken, then. You're awake. Think you could eat a bit?"
Logan looked up at her. "Thank ya kindly, Mistress," he said as courteously as possible. "But I have ta be on my way. I have urgent news I gotta deliver."
The woman shook her head. 'You'll not be going anywhere at least another day, Sir Logan," she said firmly. "You've only just escaped Gallas's torturers and gotten over a three-day fever. You'll need to get your strength up before you go on."
Logan blinked. "Three days? Mistress, I thank ya fer yer hospitality, but I haveta—how did ya know my name?"
She smiled a bit and went to the door. He heard her saying something to someone outside the door, and moments later came back and sat down in the chair beside his bed. "You've been talking in your sleep, Sir Logan. You've mentioned your name several times; as well as the name of good King Richard. I've been holding my breath whenever the soldiers passed by, looking for you, praying you wouldn't scream out in your sleep and alert them, but you never did."
"Soldiers? They're lookin' fer me?" Logan looked alarmed. "Mistress… I beg ya, don't turn me in…"
The door opened, and the little girl he'd seen looking in a few minutes ago stuck her head in again. "Here you go," she said to her mother, handing her a bowl of steaming soup. The smell rising with the steam from the bowl made his mouth water and his stomach rumble, and he stared at it hungrily.
The woman busied herself with a tiny, low table, placing it over his legs and then putting the bowl of soup on it. "There now. Eat that up, that'll give you some strength." Logan reached out to pick the spoon up, and found that his hands refused to obey him. He gritted his teeth, hating his weakness, as he forced his shaking fingers to curl around the wood spoon and pick it up. He only managed a few spoonfuls of the soup before he had to put the utensil down, exhausted. The woman gently picked up the spoon, filled it, and raised it to his lips. Unhappy with being treated like an invalid, he opened his mouth so she could feed him.
She kept feeding him until the bowl was empty, and by then he could feel a little more strength seeping into his boneless limbs. When the bowl was empty, he sat back. "My thanks, Mistress," he said courteously. She nodded, handed the bowl to the little girl, and watched as the girl exited.
"Her name's Lianne. A good girl, if a little adventurous," the woman said. 'She was outside supposed to be feeding the chickens when she saw you and that big black horse of yours coming out of the woods up the road. She went to see who you were…and came running back calling for me when she saw how bad off you was." She sighed. "I'm Mary, by the way. And you needn't call me 'mistress', I'm not one of the nobility. Me an' my man Phillip live here with our three…well, two, now…children. Lianne's the youngest. My boy Will's the oldest." She leaned forward, her eyes dark. "Look here, Sir Logan, I'll not turn you over to the soldiers who are looking for you. Those soldiers killed my boy Henry, Lianne's older brother and Will's younger brother, for no other reason but that they were bored one night and wanted a little sport. They dragged him behind a horse for miles until my boy died. I bear no particular love for Gallas, never have, never will. And with us living so close to the border as we are, here, we hear rumours and see folk that lives on your side of the border. All of them happy, and not a one of them worries about what King Richard's knights might do to a little child if they get bored. The other people of the town…the smith had a girl just becoming a woman, loveliest thing you ever saw…she was taken away from them one day when she went to the town well for water and soldiers caught her. When they was done with her there was naught the Healer could do but ease her suffering and send her on to Heaven. We all mourned her passing. And we all hated the soldiers after that. I keep Lianne close to me, now, and I been trying to talk my man into crossing the border to your side, where we won't have to worry about what soldier's going to be wanting my Lianne before she's married."
Logan realized his mouth was open, and closed it. "I'm sorry, Mistress Mary," he said quietly, bowing his head. "fer yer loss. If ya do choose ta cross the border, you'll be welcome, and ya ain't gonna haveta worry 'bout yer little girl. We don't do stuff like that."
"That's what I've heard," Mary said, leaning back in her chair. "And that's why we took such pains to hide you when you came. The soldiers were scouting out the countryside, looking for you. They stopped at every town and village and house, asking us if we'd seen a short knight with blue and green ill-fitting, stolen clothes and whip marks on his back riding a big black stallion. Of course, we told them no." She smiled. "I redyed your clothing a different color; and my man dyed your horse. There's a big black and white stud out there servicing our mare." The woman smiled. "You also have grayish streaks in your hair. You look like an old man, not a young one."
Logan smiled at her, suddenly, a real smile with humour in it. It felt good. "Thank ya, Mistress."
She smiled too. "You're not that much older than my boy, and much younger than my Phillip, are you?" she said quietly. "With all the lines on your face…I'd wondered."
"I'm twenty years old," Logan told her honestly. "But if I don't look it…well, torture ages a man ten years every time he goes in, I hear say, so that'd make me an old man considerin' I was in an' outta Gallas's torture chambers fer a week."
The woman drew in a breath. "A week. That would explain your condition. Tell me," she said quietly, "Who is Jubilee?"
Logan stiffened. 'What?" he asked warily.
Mary looked at him curiously. "You called her name several times in your sleep. Who is she?"
Logan looked down at the worn quilt covering him. She had opened her home to him, sheltered him, and hid him. Would he offend her if he didn't answer her question?
"You need not answer," she said quietly, getting up and starting to straighten the rumpled bed. 'I wondered, is all. Forgive me." She patted the lump of his feet under the blankets, and smiled at him. "Sleep now. You need it."
Logan started to struggle out of the bed. "Mistress, my apologies…I can't, I have ta reach the King, I gotta warn him…I know what Gallas is plannin', the King's gotta know…" The hot soup seemed to have gotten his limbs working, and he shook off his lassitude and climbed wearily to his feet, reaching for the clothes draped over the back of the chair. "I have ta go, Mistress, please, ya can't stop me…"
She stared at him for a moment. 'Is it that important?"
Logan nodded emphatically. "It could mean the end of the war, Mistress Mary, and the defeat of Gallas, if I reach king Richard in time." He pulled the tunic over his head, wincing as the material brushed against his still-healing back.
"If it's that important…" Mary muttered something uncomplimentary about men under her breath, a comment that Logan wisely chose to ignore, and fetched a pair of boots. "They might be a trifle large, but they'll be better than wearing nothing. Lianne!" she called out the bedroom door. "Tell Da to saddle up Sir Logan's horse!"
She hurried off to the kitchen as Logan climbed into the rest of his clothes, and used the chamber pot in the corner. When he closed the room door behind him, carrying the container, the woman was in the small kitchen area, wrapping a huge hank of meat and bread and cheese in some clean linen cloth. "Here. I don't know how much luck you might have between here and the border finding someone'll give you food, so if you can't get a hot meal, you can eat this." She also tied a fairly large wineskin full of water around the food pack, and handed it to him as she took the chamber pot from him. 'I'll take care of that,' she said. "If your message is that important, then you've already tarried here too long. Go."
Logan stared at the food pack, at the woman, then dropped to his knees and pressed his lips to the back of her hand. "May God reward such a gracious hearty as yours, Mistress Mary," he said quietly, swallowing the lump in his throat.
Mary looked down at him. "Godspeed," she said quietly, laying a hand on his head. "Go with God."
Logan kissed her hand again and hurried out the door. A tall, older man with a lined face stood holding the reins of a large black and white patched horse. Logan stared for a moment, then remembered what Mary had said about hiding his horse, then grinned and bowed to the man. "Thanks fer yer hospitality an' yer silence," he said. "If ever ya need help, send word ta the capital, an' if I get it, I'll do what I can ta help ya."
The man smiled. "Go well and swiftly, Sir Logan." He held Logan's horse as Logan tied the small food pack to the saddle horn, and mounted. Logan spurred his horse into motion, and rode off. But just before he disappeared around a bend in the road, he turned, and saw the entire family standing at their front gate watching him leave. He raised one arm in a farewell salute, and vanished.
Jubilee raised her head wearily as the door to the torture chamber opened. Her pain-blurred eyes refused to focus, but she could vaguely see that the new visitor was Gallas.
She hadn't seen him since Logan had escaped, and from the scowling look on his face, she could see that he was well and truly gone. She didn't know how long it had been; it seemed like an eternity, though she supposed it could only have been at most a day or two. There were no windows in the torture chamber, and so it was hard to know how much time had passed. But there had been at least six guard changes since she had been brought down here and tied between the two whipping posts. She knew, because there had been a fresh arm striking her body at each guard change.
They had run out of flesh on her back, and the torturer had given the men permission to carry the whipping over on her front. Jubilee lost count of how many times she had fainted and been woken back up, only for the whipping to continue. Her world narrowed to this room and the constant burning agony in her body.
Gallas stood in front of her, cupping her chin in his hand as he studied her face. She willed her eyes to focus on his. "Are you suffering?" he hissed. She stayed silent. He reached down, grabbed a handful of flesh, squeezed. She screamed weakly in pain. "Are you suffering?" This time she nodded.
"Good," he snarled, turning to the torturer. "Has she been taken down at all the last three days?"
"No, m'lord," the man replied. "She's been tied there since the other one escaped. And she'd been constantly whipped, like you wanted."
"I sent a messenger off to Duke Gilbert, telling him what happened, but I don't think he'll reach the Duke before the King returns to the palace, thanks to this wench's allowing him to escape," Gallas ground out through gritted teeth. "My plans are ruined now. Ruined, because of some little wench!"
Jubilee hardly heard him. Duke Gilbert. The man who'd ordered the mercenaries to burn the town and kill everyone. The man who had unknowingly ruined her life. He was the traitor in court. The information was priceless…and useless. She had to get it to King Richard somehow, but she couldn't escape. She was too closely guarded. Maybe...maybe she could bribe a guard with her body to carry a message outside the walls? But how would she word it so that he wouldn't know what it was about?
No. A message could so easily miscarry if it was in the hands of someone she didn't know, didn't trust. She had to escape. She had to get out of here.
How was the problem. She was so tightly tied between the two posts that her arms and legs ached from the stretch; and her hands and feet, after three days of having ropes tied around them, were numb and purple from lack of circulation. She couldn't feel, couldn't move, her fingers. She was going to lose both her hands, she knew that. When they got her down they'd probably cut off her hands. She moaned at the thought of the pain that would entail.
But she could still ride without hands. If she could just get a horse out of the stables…but how to get out of the dungeons, first. That was the problem. Maybe she could act broken, and instead of fighting the guards who wanted her to do foul things with them and to her, she would submit. Submit and submit, and act broken, until they forgot she was dangerous and started getting careless. When they forgot her, then she would act.
Would she hold out that long? It had been a terrible three days, filled with blood and pain and screams, as she begged them to stop whipping her, as she told them she would do anything if they would stop. Several times she knew she'd teetered on the brink of madness, laughing hysterically as the guards changed shifts and a new man took his place in front of her.
Madness. She was terrified of it…but if she acted like she'd gone mad, would they stop? She thought about it as she heard Gallas walk over and pick up a whip, a cruel one that she'd only experienced once before. Maybe. There was a madwoman a few cells down from her, and the guards, aside from using her body, left her alone. Jubilee was so close to going mad herself…
The first stroke of Gallas's whip across her lacerated, bleeding front caught her by surprise, and she screamed. Gallas was truly angry; and that anger lent extra strength to his arm and accuracy to his aim. And he stepped back and waited until her scream died off into anguished sobs before he struck again. Spacing each stroke out, he caused her more pain over the next hour than the guards had given her individually. She screamed, cried, promised to perform all manner of services for him if he would stop, and by the time he stepped back she was no longer making sense.
No more. She couldn't take any more. It was too much. She couldn't hold out against this agony, she couldn't escape. It was hopeless. She was going to die here. So if she was, she had nothing to lose by pretending she was mad. She threw her head back and laughed insanely, swinging in her bonds. She barely recognized her own voice starting to sing a distorted child's rhyme.
Gallas stared at the singing girl. Her bloody body swung, ignorant of the pain from her wrists and ankles, and the hoarse voice croaked out a child's rhyme, grotesque now coming from bleeding, cracked lips. As the singing echoed in the dim chamber, he threw down the whip in disgust. "Oh, hell," he snarled, as he realized that he'd just broken the girl's mind. The pain had driven her mad. "Get this…piece of filth out of here," he snapped angrily at the guard standing by the door. The man stepped forward, started to unbuckle the restraints around the wrists and legs, and caught the filthy, bleeding body as it dropped to the floor between the two posts.
"She's useless," Gallas said angrily. "Stick her in a cell, and don't bother. If the guards want her, they can have her."
The insane laughter and singing echoed down the corridors as the guards dragged the body down the corridor of cells to the one on the end she had shared with Logan. The other prisoners stared as she passed, then they turned away. They blocked their ears and tried to ignore the nonsensical singing.
Jubilee's throat hurt, but she kept singing grimly. She had to act broken. Her ploy had worked; Gallas thought she was mad. Now, all she had to do was keep it up until the guards believed she was broken, then she could escape.