Page 70 of Never Love a Lord
“Prisoner, step away from the door,” a soldier commanded.
Sybilla sat on the bench she had pried loose hours ago and meekly folded her chained hands in her lap.
The door cracked open, and she saw a sword point and a pair of eyes peering through the gap at her. The eyes rolled the limits of their sockets, taking in the interior of the carriage. The door closed for only a moment, and when it reopened, it was only wide enough to toss a battered metal pot and a limp sack of unknown contents onto the floor. Then the door slammed shut again, the sounds of chains and locks heard in reverse order.
Sybilla eyed the grungy, smelly pot distastefully, and kicked it to a corner of the floor. She would wait, as long as she was able, any matter. Then she picked up the light sack by its neck and worked at undoing the knot.
Inside was a crust of hard bread, blackened on one side, and a small root, so shriveled and emaciated with age that Sybilla could not tell if it had at one time been a carrot or a turnip. With a roll of her eyes, she tossed the bag into the disgusting pot. She would have to take Edward to task for his poor hospitality.
The thought made her smirk, but only briefly. She couldn’t allow herself to be overcome with despair just yet. Not until she had accomplished what must be done. The lack of adequate cover around the carriage was troubling.
Cover.
Sybilla gained her feet with an obvious clatter of chains and called upward through the window.
“Hello there? Hello?”
After a moment, a wary voice answered. “Shut up. What is it?”
“If you’re not going to let me out all the night, might I at least have a blanket to cover myself with?”
“No. Be quiet.”
Sybilla frowned, but then heard another voice speaking to her guard.
“Oh, come now—what’s the lady to do so sinister with a simple blanket? Have a bit of charity, old chap.”
“You mind your own damned business,” the man snarled. “She could tear it into strips or something of the like. Hang herself.”
“Well, that would save us and the king a spot of trouble, wouldn’t it? We wouldn’t even need to open the door,” the other soldier reasoned. “Simply shove it through the bars there. I can’t abide abusing a woman so, prisoner or nay.”
Sybilla cleared her throat and called in her most cajoling voice. “Please?”
She didn’t hear anything for some time, and so she thought her plea had failed. But then she heard a rustling sound and saw the corner of an impossibly dirty, rough gray cloth being pushed through the bars.
Sybilla grabbed the corner and pulled, wrinkling her nose at the dust and horsehair that was loosed from the rotting material.
Sybilla smiled triumphantly. “I shall certainly remember you to the king.”
“Don’t do me any favors, mistress,” the man grumbled.
Sybilla tossed the blanket to the opposite seat, not looking forward to handling the infested cloth. She climbed back into her corner, drew up her knees and laid her chain across her shins, and waited for night.
She must have dozed, for her eyes snapped open at the soft whinny of sound that tickled her ear. She stilled her breathing and listened.
There it was again. It was him, she was certain.
Sybilla felt down her legs slowly, carefully, and slipped her hand inside the top of her boot. Her fingers found the cincture where the ankle cuff was fastened around the leather, and she checked once more that she could indeed turn her ankle within the metal ring. She reached across the carriage floor for the filthy blanket, draping it over her chains as best she could. Then Sybilla drew in a breath, pointed her toe, and pushed at the sole of her boot while pulling her left leg.
The metal cuff ground against her ankle mercilessly as the bone squeezed through, and Sybilla knew the area would be black afterward. But just as little beads of sweat popped out along her hairline, her left foot slid free of her boot—and the cuff—the chains making little noise as they fell between the leather of her shoe, the blanket, and the upholstered bench.
The cuff around her right ankle was not as perfectly round, nor as big as the one on her left foot had been, and Sybilla panicked briefly when she thought that her escape would be foiled. But then the image of Julian Griffin sleeping in his bed in the tower room at Fallstowe, his daughter’s downy head nestled against his bicep, filled her mind, and the skin of her ankle yielded as she kicked the boot free.
Sybilla doubled over her knees, her eyes squeezed shut, and she fought the urge to scream at the burning pain now ringing her right ankle. She didn’t dare touch it, as she could feel the wetness running down and under the arch of her foot. She knew her boot was torn, ruined.
She would leave bloody footprints, but they would not be seen in the night, and perhaps would have disappeared with the dew by morning.
She heard the soft whinny again, closer this time, and Sybilla knew she must go now.
