Page 72 of Besotted
Ruby’s eyes were frantic. “Mark my words, she intends to slay you.”
I smoothed a hand over the silky skirt. “’Tis possible she intends to bargain for me, gaining the keys to the ancient treasure she has always wanted.” ’Twas the conclusion I’d arrived at for why the queen had ordered such care be taken with my appearance. When the liaisons from Mercia’s court arrived, she wanted them to see me as a regal queen, one worthy of trading for the keys.
The banging against the door intensified.
“No, Aurora.” Ruby wrestled with me again, but I resisted, and she only moved me mere inches. “My mother wants your heart for her alchemy.”
A shiver raced up my spine. “My heart?”
“She could not get Pearl’s, though she desperately tried. And now you are her last hope.”
The news of Queen Margery’s attempts at alchemy didn’t surprise me. My whole life I’d known she was experimenting with the white stone she’d inherited. However, I hadn’t expected she’d become so twisted in her experimentations that she’d consider murdering her own daughter. Poor Pearl.
The ramming from the guards rattled the walls and shifted the hinges. Did the guards intend to break down the door to retrieve me?
“But why go to all this trouble if she plans to slay me?” I motioned toward myself, indicating the lovely ringlets that cascaded with jewels.
“She must have the heart of the fairest royal maiden in all the land for the alchemy to work. She is ensuring that you are indeed the fairest.”
I didn’t want to believe Ruby, but the earnestness in her tone and the pleading in her eyes left no doubt of her truthfulness. I needed no further urging. I didn’t know all the details, nor did I need to know. My cousin was offering me an escape, and I must take it while I could.
“Make haste.” She pushed me toward the window while she stopped to grab the stool at her dressing table. “We must go now. Something is happening, an onslaught of some kind. Perhaps my sister is coming for us.”
I now understood the commotion and also the urgency of the soldiers in coming after me. If Pearl and her Scanian prince-husband were indeed attacking, then the queen likely feared she would lose the opportunity to claim my heart.
I shuddered at just how close I’d come to being led to my slaughter. And now I felt foolish for holding out hope Queen Margery might yet be swayed into seeing the error of her ways, that perhaps we might even learn to live at peace with each other.
With a burst of both frustration and panic, I joined Ruby in dragging the stool to the window.
“Up with you.” My heart thudded with the need to escape. “You go first.”
“No, the queen does not intend to kill me tonight—”
“She will once she learns you have aided me.” I picked the girl up and hoisted her onto the stool, giving her little choice in the matter. Then I folded my hands together to make a step. “Now go.”
Ruby hesitated. At the crashing and splintering of wood behind us, we had mere seconds before the guards broke down the door.
Ruby placed her slippered foot into my hand, leapt upward, and grabbed the windowsill. From underneath, I pushed until she was all the way in the window. After a moment of writhing, she managed to situate herself and straddle the opening.
“Come on.” She held her arm out toward me.
I climbed onto the stool and grabbed hold of her. With the first effort, I nearly toppled her from her perch. When she clasped the window frame for more leverage, I tried again, scrambling up the wall.
A final crash behind us was followed by rapid footsteps and shouts as guards entered the room. I didn’t need to glance over my shoulder to know I was too late. I wouldn’t make it.
“Go!” I called to Ruby, releasing her and dropping back to the stool. “Go now to the gatehouse, and maybe you can lower it so the others might reach me in time.”
Soldiers grasped me from behind, but I resisted, twisting and shoving them away, hoping to distract them from Ruby, giving her a chance to drop down to the other side. When she disappeared, I lifted a silent prayer for her safety.
And then I allowed the soldiers to lead me away. This time, I took no care with my gown or hair. I allowed them to push me along with haste, hoping that in the process my carefully made-up appearance would fall to pieces and I’d no longer be considered fair. ’Twas wishful, but I was desperate.
Much too soon, we arrived at an arched door with intricate engravings of biblical stories etched throughout. The guards opened the door to reveal a simple chapel with a few benches, a prayer rail with a cushion, and an altar at the front of the chancel. A cross made of ornate jewels hung on the wall above the altar, out of place in the otherwise rustic place of worship.
I wasn’t surprised to find the queen there. She was kneeling at the railing, her head bent, and her long hair falling in a curtain around her. As the soldiers pushed me to the front, she didn’t look up, seemingly unaware of my presence although, with the commotion, she had to know I was here.
Two monks who’d been standing in the shadows stepped forward, their hands tucked into the wide sleeves of their habits. “Tie her to the altar.” The older monk with a gray tonsured ring nodded at a wooden table with the same type of engravings as the door.
I shuddered. Would I die upon the altar? Was this, then, my fate? To become an offering to the queen after so many years of trying to avoid her?
