Satisfied the chain was secure, he picked up his lantern and started up the ladder.
As the shadows rose up from the floor around her, Elena cried out, 'Leave me the light, for pity's sake.'
The bailiff paused at the top of the ladder and laughed. 'What do you need a light for, girl, there's nowt to see, save the rats and old Gerard's ghost when he comes for you.'
Raffaele's fist struck as swiftly as a viper's fangs, catching the bailiff on the side of the head and almost sending him crashing back into the pit.
'Sir Gerard to you, you son of a whore. And don't ever let me hear you speak of his ghost in front of her ladyship.'
But the next minute Raffaele was reaching out his hand and hauling the stunned bailiff up on to the floor of the cellar as if he was his closest friend.
'Come on, man, there's a flagon of wine waiting for us in the Hall. Leave this murdering witch to the rats. With any luck, they'll finish her and spare us the trouble of a hanging'
The two men hauled the ladder up through the hatch. The iron grill slammed shut and Elena saw the glow of their lantern light grow fainter as they walked away. At least they hadn't closed the wooden trapdoor on top of it; she couldn't bear to think of being sealed in as if she was in ... a coffin.
She was to die. She knew it and yet such a thing didn't seem possible. She couldn't make herself grasp the reality of it. In a few brief hours she would be dead, sent to the next world, and then what? Torment and torture without any end, like those pictures on the church wall of men and women being forced into the flames, boiling helplessly in cauldrons, their limbs hacked off or pierced with knives. She found herself retching in fear. No, no, she couldn't think of it, she mustn't think.
She crouched on the damp, mouldy straw in the corner of the tiny cell. Even had she not been chained to the wall, she would have crouched against it, too terrified to let go of the solidness of it and drown in the nothingness beyond. She had never known darkness so thick, so complete, as if she had been blinded.
She strained, trying to hear any rustling in the straw, but she could hear nothing except her own heart pounding. She tried desperately not to think of the corpse lying no more than a foot away, behind the loose rocks. Would she hear the coffin lid grate open?
Only yesterday she was stirring Athan's supper over their fire and now she was here, and they meant to hang her. They couldn't. It wasn't possible. She was innocent. Didn't they understand she'd given her child away to keep him safe? They must believe her. Gytha would return before morning. She'd tell them the baby was alive. Gytha must come back and tell them. She must.
Elena drew her legs up to her chin, wrapping her arms tightly about them and resting her head on the wall behind. Suddenly aware of the burning throbbing of her breasts, bursting with the milk her son would never drink, she tried to ease them, but they hurt so much she could hardly bear to touch them. She was so tired. She had not slept at all last night and all she wanted to do now was to sink into the oblivion of sleep, but if she did, then her last few hours of life would be gone and the morning would come instantly before she had time to prepare herself. If she could stay awake she could somehow stretch out those hours and give Gytha time to return.
She must pray. She must say the words that would save her from the fires of hell. But she couldn't remember what the dying were supposed to say. Maybe she'd never known. It had been three years since the churches had been open for services and she couldn't recall any of the words the priests had recited. She always said her prayers, of course, for things that no priest would ever pray — Make Athan love me. But those were her words, not the right words, not the Latin words, and she knew only the magic words of the priests had the power to save a person from hell.
Holy Virgin, Holy Mother, save me. But Mary was a mother,