Page 50 of Highland Slayer
As she wiped her face, Mateo envisioned a limbless man singing God’s praises as he waited to die. It was horrific. But it explained why Leonore was so terrified.
And why the fear of the Ormsfolk was well founded.
“Get back to your bed,” he told her, softly but firmly. “I must find the others. We will have a plan to repel the Ormsfolk, should they come. But you must sleep because if you are to help us fight back, you must be rested.”
She was being pushed closer to her bed, but she was still resisting. “I do not want to sleep,” she said. “I must leave before they come.”
“You cannot,” he said. “If you leave the safety of the walls, and they are nearby, they could capture you. That is not what you want.”
She hadn’t thought of that. After a moment’s deliberation, she shook her head. “It is not,” she said quietly.
“Then you must stay and let us protect you.”
There wasn’t much more she could say after that. She was shaken, exhausted, and ill. She let Mateo push her back to her bed, where she sat heavily before lying down.
Mateo stood back and watched.
When he was certain she wasn’t going to get up again, he turned back for his own cot, thinking to take a quick lie-down before going out and finding his friends and cousins. Dawn was starting to break and a new day was upon them. Clearly, something was going on that he hadn’t been part of, but he needed to be. If the Ormsfolk were as bad as Leonore said, then he definitely needed to be part of whatever was being planned. And he would be once he closed his eyes for a few moments.
Will you give me your word that you will not let them take me alive?
God help him… he hoped it didn’t come to that.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The dormitory ofSt. Margaret’s used to be the former storage vault of the castle before the order took over. It was sunk down into the ground, on a lower level, and it had arched ceilings of stone and floors of hard-packed earth. That meant in the winter, the cold would seep up through the ground and make it nearly impossible to stay warm. Not even the braziers could stave off the bone-numbing dampness.
Anaxandra’s bed had a prime location against the wall so she could see the entire chamber. The dormitory was where everyone slept except for the nuns, who slept in their own chamber on the floor above. Mother Michael also slept in an alcove off her chapel, as was her right as the leader of the order, but Anaxandra was relegated to the dormitory where everyone else slept. There were a total of forty-seven women and children at St. Margaret’s—eight nuns, sixteen children, and four mothers who were there with their children, leaving nineteen women who were either widows or simply women who had grown up as foundlings and become part of the army.
It made for a crowded dormitory sometimes.
Morning came before Anaxandra was ready for it. She was warm and cozy when Sister Hildegarde shook her awake. It was before dawn and Anaxandra had a day ahead of her that included duties on the wall followed by fashioning more bolts for the crossbows. Her garden duties were over for the time being, as they weren’t daily. Therefore, at Sister Hildegarde’s urging, she was up and moving, stumbling out of bed as she headed for a corner of the chamber where the women washed. Waterwas already there, having been drawn in buckets by some of the younger members of the group, and she washed her face and used a community reed, frayed, to brush her teeth. That was how one lived in a commune and most especially with a religious order.
Personal possessions did not include things like combs and teeth-brushing tools.
Washed and brushed, her hair pulled into a tight ponytail at the top of her head, tied off with fabric strips, Anaxandra followed Sister Hildegarde out of the dormitory just as some of the other women began to awaken.
“I heard you went into Dumfries with one of the men who came,” Sister Hildegarde said when they were on the ground level. “How was that?”
Anaxandra shrugged. “It was nothing,” she said. “I rode escort so he could purchase medicines for his comrade.”
“What’s his name?”
“Who?”
“The man you escorted.”
“Estevan.”
“Your Estevan is wandering around the bailey,” Sister Hildegarde said as they approached the door that led outside. “He looks like he’s inspecting the compound, and I want to know why. Do you know?”
Anaxandra was fairly certain why. “There seems to be some concern about the injured woman in the sanctuary,” she said. “They think she is in danger.”
“What danger?”
They came to the door and Anaxandra paused, facing the old nun. “Estevan explained it to me yesterday,” she said. “As we were leaving Dumfries with the medicine for his friend, we came across an old man who had been beaten. He said the men fromthe sea had killed his family and that they spoke a language he did not understand.”
Sister Hildegarde wasn’t following. “What does that mean?” she said. “What does that have to do with us?”
