nights, it was all but deserted now. The forges were cold in the smithies, the men all off somewhere celebrating their craftsmanship and skill. De Chesnai headed for one particularly dismal-looking bothy and again Friar paused, acutely conscious of how conspicuous he appeared in his black and crimson robes.
On a command from De Chesnai, the three guards dispersed, strolling casually to take up positions overlooking the approaches to the bothy. Gil had melted into one of the snickleways long ago, but reappeared now to give Friar a reassuring nod.
“There are no eyes but our own watching us,” she announced, and smugly arched her brow in De Chesnai’s direction.
Bristling at the insult to his integrity, the knight thrust aside the ragged bit of canvas that served as a door. “Inside, the pair of you. And there had best be no tricks, or I will be the first to twist a knife in your gizzards.”
Friar ducked through the doorway, followed by Gil and Sir Roger. The bothy was windowless and airless, the stench of raw bog iron nearly as overpowering to their throat and eyes as the tang of animal urine in the filthy straw. What light there was came through gaps in the thatched roof and holes in the canvas door.
Biddy was lying on a pallet in the corner, and at first glance, she was so pale and still, Alaric thought she was dead.
“Biddy?” He dropped down onto a knee beside her and took up one of her ice cold hands in his. “Mistress Bidwell? Can you hear me?”
Biddy cracked open an eyelid. It took a moment for her to bring Friar’s face into focus, but when she did, she squeezed his hand with more strength than he would have supposed she possessed.
“What happened to you, Biddy?”
“Not important,” she said, straining to form each word. “My lamb is all that matters now. You must find her and take her away from this terrible place.”
“Find her? The lady is not in her chambers?”
“I was trying to tell you—” Gil blurted out, halted mid-sentence by the combined persuasion of De Chesnai’s grip on her arm and the glowering warning in his eyes.
“The baron’s men,” Biddy gasped. “They took her away. Dragged her from the tower. He … hurt her dreadfully. He … struck her … again and again!”
Biddy’s eyes rolled upward so that only the whites showed from between her shivering lashes. Her breathing was raspy and uneven, and Alaric, at a loss what to do to ease her pain, held her hand as tightly as he dared and suffered silently through the spasm with her.
“She managed somehow to crawl down from the tower and find me where I waited by a postern gate,” De Chesnai explained in a murmur. “The effort cost her dearly, but she was determined not to die until I brought her to La Seyne Sur Mer.”
“La Seyne?” Alaric looked up.
“Indeed. My men and I barely managed to bring her this far before the talebearers were blazing through the castle grounds with the news of De Gournay’s victory. Since her first choice was obviously out of reach, she insisted upon you.”
Friar glanced back down at Biddy. Her eyes were open and clear, save for the tears that flowed in a fat stream down her temples.
“He will kill her, Friar,” she cried. “He means to torment her first, then kill her; I know he does. The same for poor Eduard—oh, the brave, brave lad! He tried to help, but he was no match for the Dragon. And because he is the Wolf’s son, you can imagine how much pleasure it will give the baron to hurt him.” A great shuddering sob racked Biddy’s body before she added, “I dread to think how much more it will delight him to torture my poor lamb.”
Friar shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs. “Did you say … the Wolf’s son?”
“Eduard. Young Eduard … the Dragon’s squire. He has been taken away as well but wounded so mortally, I fear he cannot have lived out the hour.”
“Do you know where he was taken? Do you know where the Lady Servanne was taken?”
Biddy swallowed hard and ran a dry tongue across her lips. “The boy … no. But I heard him tell the guards to take my lady to … to the eagle’s eyrie. Yes, yes that was what he called it: the eagle’s eyrie.”
Alaric raised a questioning brow in Roger de Chesnai’s direction, but the knight was as much in ignorance