The knight laughed. “If you say so.”
“Where are we?” Ransom asked, grateful his dizziness had abated after drinking the broth. His appetite had only been teased so far.
“You think I’ll tell you?” said the knight. “You’ve no right to know. What if you live, eh?” His look was dark. “But I don’t think you’re one of the blessed. DeVaux is wrong about you. I’ve bet ten livres on it. You’ll be dead in three days. Maybe four. And you deserve it. You killed my friend.” His eyes flashed with hatred. “I hope you rot and then die. Painfully.”
He wasn’t the first man who had wished Ransom would die. Nor would he be the last.
Ransom looked down at his wrist and found the bracelet was gone. One of his captors had stolen it from him in his delirium. The rage that filled the emptiness in his chest nearly made him start screaming accusations. It had been given to him by Claire. He wanted it back, and in that moment, he would have killed any of them to get it. The violence of his thoughts alarmed him. He was still sick, still weak. He couldn’t hurt anyone. But he wanted to. He wanted to make them suffer.
Instead, he chewed on another piece of moldy bread, breathing in and out through his nose to stifle his fury. And when the other knight returned with a platter of cold meat, a wedge of cheese, and some goblets of wine, the two men sat on the floor and began to eat in front of him. Ransom turned over on the cot so that his back was to them, removed the linen from the bread. A thought struck him that perhaps the bread might help soak up some of the blood. He unfastened the bloody bandage before pressing the bread against the wound.
The lady of the castle had helped him. Knowing that secret helped him endure the agony he caused himself. He would guard her secret. As he tied the strips of linen over his wounds, he thanked her repeatedly in his mind.
He promised himself he would find a way to thank her for her kindness.
Every day I keep hoping for word, but I’ve heard naught but silence. It has been three months since the tournament of Chessy, and still no one knows if Ransom survived the slaughter on the road to Auxaunce. Not knowing is frightful, yet at least it allows me to hope. All the knights that Queen Emiloh brought with her were slain. Even Lord Rakestraw was slain. Peasant farmers said that one man fought against a hundred. That he was pierced by a lance from behind a hedge and taken by DeVaux.
That is all we know. Did they dump his body in the woods? What has become of him? Nothing. We know nothing. Silent, cruel, menacing nothing. Da has left for Atha Kleah to hold the courts of justice again before winter. The thought of winter coming adds to my torment. What have they done to my Ransom? And how will he survive the coming cold, if he has survived at all? I’m weeping again. How I hate to cry.
—Claire de Murrow
Connaught Castle, Kingdom of Legault
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Price of a Knight
There was a single leaf clinging to the branches of the tree. Ransom watched it, his back against the crooked trunk, wondering when it would fall. He didn’t want it to. The stubbornness of the stem clinging to the twig gave him a small measure of hope. The woods were carpeted with fallen debris from the trees. A tattered cloak covered his shoulders, but it did little to warm him. Cold and hunger were his constant companions these many months.
“You try and do better,” snorted Callum.
Ransom knew all their names now. He knew the moods of his guards, their temperaments. In a strange way, he was part of DeVaux’s mesnie, even though he was a prisoner. He took a turn feeding the fire, which kept them all warm at night, but it would have been impossible to escape, given that multiple guards were always on duty and his leg still troubled him. Not that he would have tried to run. When a knight was being held for ransom, it was considered dishonorable to attempt an escape. And so he stayed.
He talked with the other men, bantered with them, and shared their cup of misery, which they’d all drunk from since the day they’d unwittingly murdered Lord Rakestraw.
Callum, Brett, Jonah, and Riley had come upon the notion that hurling a boulder would be a pleasant way to spend a cold afternoon. One by one, they’d hefted the massive rock, which was about the size of a miller’s bag of wheat. And they’d thrown it down the hillside, seeing how far it would roll before resting. Then two men would fetch it and bring it back. So far, Riley held the record.
“I can do better than you,” Jonah told another man with a snort.
“But you can’t do better than Riley. His went the farthest.” A dagger had been stuck tip-down to mark the spot.