Page 107 of The Knight's Pledge
“Oh, do shut up, Vivienne,” she demanded, and the strict admonition must have shocked the woman, for the narrow, twisting stone stairwell was blessedly silent for a time.
Until they came to the cell, that is. And then Lady Paget once more began protesting in earnest, her panic causing her voice to shake and crack, her too-thin body to bow and flail within the grips of the guardsmen as they dragged her to the opening through which Caris had walked calmly. Eventually they pitched the old woman in and slammed the barred door shut, the key squealing in the lock. The guards walked away, leaving the two women in semi darkness, the faint light from the only torch down the corridor coming in through the bars striped and sinister.
“Oh, my God,” Vivienne moaned. “Oh, my God.” She squatted down on her haunches against the stone wall, her hands up around her ears, rocking her gristly form back and forth. She was still dressed splendidly in her velvet gown with chain and jeweled blade, while Caris had stupidly lost hers to the guards inthe king’s box.
Caris watched the woman with high interest. She’d never seen Vivienne Paget in such a state, in all their years of supposed friendship. Of course, Caris didn’t actually hold Lady Paget as her friend—Caris had never had any friends at all. Not even Vaughn, really. But whereas before she might have pretended sympathy for the woman—she was very good at knowing how to feign the expected response—she knew it was no longer necessary, and she chose to simply observe ViviennePaget’s terror.
Perhaps she might break altogether, Caris realized with renewed life. Especially if she was helped along.
“Vivienne,” she called out. “Vivienne?”
Lady Paget raised her eyes with a whimper, her head still grasped between her hands.
“Elsmire Tower is gone,” Caris said lightly. “It burned. There’snothing left.”
Lady Pagetshook her head.
“They sent word not long after Euphemia first appeared before the king. You know it was her, don’t you? Her and her little band. Some of whom must have been your…guests.”
Lady Paget’s head shook more quickly. “No. It’s my home. I will go there whenthis is over.”
“You have no home now,” Caris advised, cocking her head while she watched the woman unravel—it had been so long since she’d seen someone give up their sanity. She walked toward her, slowly, her slippers gliding on the filth of the floor. “But it’s no matter. When the king hears what’s gone on inside the hold, you’ll be hanged.”
“No,” LadyPaget moaned.
“Everyone will know,” Caris mused.
Vivienne stilled and her face slowly raised again as Caris stood over her. “You,” she whispered. “This is your fault. You…youcommoner. You’re not even noble. You never were. You’re a whore.”
“But I’ll die a baroness,” Caris said. “Henry will never try me. Never strip me of my title. I promise you that. You, however, will be forever rememberedas a monster.”
“It wasn’t me,” Vivienne sobbed. “It wasyou. You and Vaughn and Adolphus.It wasn’t me!”
Caris crouched down and reached her arms around the woman’s waist. “Here now, sit down a bit. It will be alright. You’re overcome.” As she withdrew her arms, she took hold of Vivienne’s jeweled dagger and slid it from the sheath. “Here, show me your palms—let me see them.”
The crazed woman held up her palms obediently, at the terminus of her vulnerable wrists. In two quick slices, Caris had laid open the pale flesh and then backed away while the woman struggled to understand what had just happened to her.
“No,” Vivienne gasped as the red welled over her skin and to the invisible black of the floor. “Help me. Help me!” she screamed, and then began walking toward Caris on her knees. “Help me!”
Caris lifted her slippered foot and kicked the woman over, where she lay jittering on the stones. As the movement slowed, Caris drew nearer, crouching next to the woman whose life was flowing out of her. Caris watched her eagerly.
“It’s fine,” Caris said, almost soothingly. “It will be over in a moment, and then nothing. Peace. Blackness. Sleep. You’ll soon see.”
Vivienne Paget’s lips moved, and so Carisleaned closer.
“God, forgive me,” she breathed.
Caris frowned and straightened. She looked down at the blade still in her hand and then in the next instant, drew it down both her own forearms. She fumbled with the slick, sticky weapon to place it in Vivienne Paget’s still, cold grasp, closing the limp fingers around it, and then Caris retreated to the far corner of the cell and sank to her bottom to wait for the blackness,for the sleep.
She’d won. She won, over Greece. Over the king. Over the English peasantry. She’d won, over ungrateful Chordileia. Over Thomas Annesley and Euphemia and the Pagets and even over her beloved, cruel Vaughn, himself. There would be no triumph for Elpis or for Henry. Caris Hargrave, who had once lured drunken soldiers from the taverns of Mystras to the villa to be butchered, was dying in a palace, as a noblewoman. And then itwould be over.
And for Caris, there would atlast be peace.
She was still numb, although she tried to sense the slipping away of herself. It was no use—she’d been numb her entire life and that last coveted sensation, the one she’d witnessed so many times in the young women she’d shown such mercy as their lives slipped away, was denied her. She chuckled at the irony.
But even in the blackness of the cell, figures began to appear; people and faces she recognized, and others that were strange, and only claimed the suggestion of humanity. Caris strained to see their blurred features in her dimming gaze. She blinked slowly—it was as if they were shaking their heads so quickly their features were smeared as they approached the corner whereCaris slumped.
How? she tried to whisper, but there was not breath enough left in her already stiff lungs for the solitary query. Some of these people…they were dead. Had been dead for decades. Caris knew, because she’d watched them die.
