The Velvet Promise Read online

  Walter and Arthur stood at one side of the great hall. The tables had been cleared and the men-at-arms spread straw-filled mattresses on the floor for the night.

  “I don’t trust her,” Sir Arthur said under his breath.

  “Trust her!” Walter exploded. “How can you say such a thing after you’ve seen her? She is a delicate flower of a girl. She has been beaten and so mistreated that she fears the slightest frown.”

  “She didn’t seem so frightened when she demanded better quarters for her mother.”

  “Demanded! She could never demand anything. It isn’t in her nature to do so. She was merely concerned for Lady Helen. And that is another example of her sweet nature.”

  “Such sweet nature obtained a great deal from you tonight. Look at how she had you nearly admit there was no written agreement of marriage from her father.”

  “What does that matter?” Walter demanded. “She doesn’t want her marriage to Gavin Montgomery.”

  “And what makes you so sure of that?”

  “I have heard—”

  “Heard! Bah! Then why did she come here? She cannot be so simple that she believes there is no danger for her.”

  “Do you imply that I would harm her?” Walter demanded.

  Arthur stared at him. “Not while she is new to you.” He knew Walter well. “You must wed her before you bed her. Only then will you truly own her. If you take her now without the church, she may hate you as you say she hates her husband.”

  “I don’t need advice about women from you! I am the master here. Have you no duties?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Arthur smirked. “Tomorrow I must help my master show our defenses to our prisoner.” He walked away just as Walter threw a wine goblet at his head.

  Judith woke very early, while the room was still dark. Immediately she remembered Joan saying that the morning would bring word of Gavin. She threw back the cover hastily, and put her arms through the sleeves of a bedgown of cinnamon brocade from Byzantium. The brocade was woven with lighter flowers in the fabric and was lined with cream cashmere. The straw pallet where Joan was to sleep was empty. Judith clamped her teeth together in anger and suddenly began to worry. Had Joan left her, too? Had Arthur discovered Joan in some act of spying?

  The door opened almost silently, and a heavy-lidded Joan tiptoed through the shadows. “Where have you been!” Judith demanded in a tight whisper.

  Joan’s hand flew to cover her mouth to still the shriek gathering there. “My lady! You gave me a fright. Why aren’t you in bed?”

  “You dare to ask me why I’m not in bed?” Judith hissed before recovering herself. “Come, tell me of your news. Have you learned anything of Gavin?” Judith took her maid’s arm and pulled her to the bed. They both sat cross-legged on the thick feather mattress.

  But Joan’s eyes didn’t look directly into her mistress’s intense golden stare. “Yes, my lady, I found him.”

  “Is he well?” Judith pressed.

  Joan took a deep breath and rushed into her description. “It was hard to find him. He is well guarded at all times and the entryway is…difficult. But,” she smiled, “as luck would have it, one of the guards seemed to like me quite well, and we spent a lot of time together. He is such a man! All night he—”

  “Joan!” Judith said sharply. “You are hiding something from me, aren’t you? What about my husband? How is he?”

  Joan looked at her mistress, started to speak, then dropped her face into her hands. “It is too horrible, my lady. That they could do such a thing to him is beyond belief. He is a nobleman! Even the worst serfs are not treated as he is.”

  “Tell me,” Judith said in a deadly voice. “Tell me everything.”

  Joan lifted her head, fighting tears and the turning of her stomach. “Few of the castlefolk know he is here. He was brought alone, during the night and…thrown below.”

  “Below?”

  “Yes, my lady. There is a space below the cellar—little more than a hole dug out amid the foundations of the tower. The moat water seeps across the floor and things…slimy things…breed there.”

  “And this is where Gavin is kept?”

  “Yes, my lady,” Joan said quietly. “The ceiling of that hole is the cellar floor, and it is high above the hole’s floor. The only descent is down a ladder.”

  “You have seen this place?”

  “Yes, my lady.” She bowed her head again. “And I have seen Lord Gavin.”

  Judith grabbed the girl’s arms fiercely. “You have seen him and you waited this long to tell me?”

  “I didn’t believe that…that man was Lord Gavin.” She looked up, agony etching her face. “He has always been so handsome, so strong, but now there is little more than skin on his bones. His eyes are black circles that burn through you. The guard, the man I spent the night with, opened the trapdoor and held a candle. The stench! I could barely look into the blackness. Lord Gavin—I wasn’t at first sure it was he—covered his face from the brightness of just one candle. The floor, my lady—it crawled! There was no dry place on it. How does he sleep? There could be no place to lie down.”

  “You are sure this man was Lord Gavin?”

  “Yes. The guard’s whip licked at him, and he drew his hand away and stared up at us in hatred.”

  “Did he know you?”

  “I don’t think so. I feared that at first, but now I believe him to be beyond recognizing anyone.”

  Judith looked away in thought.

  Joan touched her arm. “My lady, it is too late. He’s not long for this world. He can’t last for more than a few days, at most. Forget him. He is worse than dead.”

  Judith gave her a hard look. “Didn’t you just say he is alive?”

  “Only barely. Even if he were taken out today, the sunlight would kill him in moments.”

  Judith left the bed. “I must dress.”

  Joan looked at her mistress’s straight back. She was glad she’d given up any idea of rescue. The shrunken, emaciated face still haunted her. Still, Joan was suspicious. She’d lived with Judith too long, and she knew her little mistress rarely let a problem go unsolved. There were times when Joan had been completely exhausted from arranging and rearranging some matter so that Judith could see it from all angles. Yet Judith never gave up. If she set her mind to the harvesting of a field before a certain date, it was harvested by then, even if Judith herself had to help in the threshing.

  “Joan, I will need a garment of russet, very dark, like the serfs wear. And some boots—tall ones. It won’t matter if they’re too large—for I can lace them tight. And a bench. Make sure it is a long one, but narrow enough to fit through the trapdoor. Also, I will need an ironbound box. Not too big, but one I can strap to my stomach.”

  “Stomach?” Joan managed to get out. “You can’t think—Haven’t I explained to you that he is nearly dead, that he can’t be rescued? You can’t take a bench to him and think no one will notice. Food, perhaps, but—” Judith’s look stopped her. She was a small woman, but when those gold eyes turned as hard as that, there was no disobeying her. “Yes, my lady,” Joan said meekly. “A bench, boots, a servant’s garments and…an iron box to fit your stomach,” she said sarcastically.

  “Yes, to fit my stomach,” Judith said without humor. “Now help me dress.” She lifted a yellow silk underdress from the large chest by the bed. There were twenty pearl buttons running from wrist to elbow. Over it she slipped a gown of tawny gold velvet with wide, hanging sleeves. A belt of brown silk cords threaded with pearls hung from her waist to the ground.

  Joan took an ivory comb and began to arrange her mistress’s hair. “Don’t let him know you care anything for Lord Gavin.”

  “I don’t need to be told that. Go now and find the things I want. And don’t let anyone see you with them.”

  “I can’t carry a bench about in secrecy.”

  “Joan!”

  “Yes, my lady, I will do as I am told.”

  Hours later after he’d spen