‘No. I’ll get home. Got to get Betsi to pack ready for tomorrow.’
‘You’re not thinking this through, Will. No one will be taking on mercenaries down south. What will you do?’
‘I don’t care.’
Relph leaned forward. ‘You have to care, Will. You have a family to support, and a sick son. You can’t go dragging them out into the countryside. It’s not fair on them. Look, I don’t know why this has got to you so bad. You stuck a few inches of gristle into a few soft warm places. Now you want to ruin your life and your family’s lives. It don’t make no sense. You get home and get a good night’s sleep. It’ll all look differentin the morning.’
Will shook his head. ‘What will be different? I’m forty-two years old. I’ve lived my whole life by an iron set of rules which my dad beat into me. You ever heard me lie, Relph. You ever seen me steal?’
“No, you’re a regular saint, mate. They ought to put up statues to you. But what’s the point you’re making?’
‘I just betrayed everything I’ve lived for. Everything. What we did there was wrong. Worse than that, it was evil.’
‘Now you’re talking daft. What do you mean evil? She was a slag, and I’ll bet she’s been jumped before. What pigging difference does it make? She’s dead anyway, come morning. You heard the captain, they’re going to put out her eyes and hang her in the old cage. Bloody Hell, Will, you think what we done is any worse than that? Come on I’ll walk you home. You look all in.’
Relph stood and helped Will to his feet. The big man staggered, then headed for the door.
‘I should have stopped it,’ mumbled Will. ‘Not joined in. Oh God, what will I say to Betsi?’
‘Nothing, mate. Nothing at all. You just go home, and you sleep.’
The relief guard was called Owen Hunter; the man he replaced told him of the sport he had missed. Owen was a Lowlander, married to a harridan named Clorrie who made his life a misery. As he sat at the dungeon table in the flickering torchlight, he tried to remember the last time he had enjoyed a woman. It was more than three years – if you didn’t count the alley whore.
He had smiled when the guard told him of the afternoon’s entertainment, and even managed to say, ‘That’s life,’ when the man pointed out that it should have been Owen’s shift, except that the Lowlander had swapped it earlier that day.
But now, as he sat alone, he allowed his bitterness to rise. Of all the women to choose he had married Clorrie: sharp-tongued, mean-spirited Clorrie. Life’s a bastard and no mistake, thought OwenNLike the other soldiers, he had heard of the incident when the Baron lost his eye. Even now the surgeons were at work in the upper room of the keep, plugging the wound and feeding the Baron expensive opiates.
There was no sound in the dungeon corridor, save for the occasional hiss from the torches. Owen stood and stretched his legs, remembering the last words of the man he replaced: ‘What an arse on her! I tell you, Owen, she was a jump to remember.’
Owen lifted a torch from its bracket and walked past the four empty cells to the locked door. Pulling open the grille he peered inside. There was no window to the cell and the torchlight did not pierce the gloom. Slipping the bolt, he opened the door. The woman was lying on the floor, her legs spread open. There was blood on her face and thighs, and one of her breasts was bleeding. Owen moved closer. She was still unconscious. Despite the blood he could see that she was beautiful, her hair gleaming silver and red in the torchlight. His eyes scanned her body. Even the hair of her pubic mound was silver, he noticed. She was slim and tall, her breasts firm. Owen saw that one of her nipples was bleeding, a thin trickle of red still running down to her side. Kneeling alongside her Owen ran his hand up her thigh, his fingers stroking the silver mound, his index finger slipping inside her.