“In twenty years you could have…”
The woman shook her head, bending to collect her dagger and thrust it back into the sheath at her belt. “Not until Jabez was old enough. This ville runs on fear, Ryan. And now you’ve come back. All my life here you’ve been a shadow on every wall. A listener behind every door, the poison in every dish, the fear in every dream.”
“Now I’m here.”
“The older servants prayed to you. We flogged and branded them and still they believed that one day you’d come back and save them all from… Harvey and from me. They call me the Lady of Pain, you know, Ryan. Me! This time tomorrow Harvey will return from the hunt. You and your friends will die in a fine public ceremony. Soon Harvey will die, and Jabez and I will run the Shens. And there will be no more shadows!”
Her voice soared like an eagle as she ranted at the bound man at her feet. She kicked out at him in a vicious temper, her feet cracking into his ribs, leaving deep pur-ple bruises.
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As quickly as it had come, the anger left her, the wild swinging of moods that was typical of a jolt junkie. She stood panting, her face growing blank. “There, brother-in-law, you made me… Relatives shouldn’t anger each other.”
“Goodbye, sister-in-law,” he managed.
“I came to see you,” she said, pausing near the door, “to see if you might be of use. You could have killed Harvey. That would have been pleasant, wouldn’t it? All the double-poor stupes that live on our lands would have flocked to worship at the shrine. Ryan, the miracle baron of Front Royal. You could have had me as well, brother-in-law.”
“Why not?” he asked. Behind her the last of the lamps was guttering out, making her shadow dance, shift and vanish.
Rachel smiled. “No, Ryan. Not now. You should have been the baron. You and I could… once… Not now. I know men, Ryan. I know you. You might agree, to save your skin, then break my neck without a single backward glance. No. You aren’t weak enough.”
She pulled at the door handle, pausing a moment in the brightly lit opening to glance back at him. Then the door slammed shut, and Ryan was left alone in silence and in darkness.
The blood congealed on the tips of his fingers, around the nails and on the grazes around his throat from the tearing of the rough iron chain.
As the night wore on, Ryan managed to slip into an uncomfortable slumber, waking often from the pain of his position. He wondered how the others were bearing up, thinking specially of Krysty Wroth.
Ryan also wondered about Lori and Doc Tanner.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“BY the three kennedys!” Doctor Theophilus Tan-ner exclaimed, tripping over the gnarled root of an an-cient live oak. It had rained, briefly but fiercely, and the ground had become soggy and treacherous. The low clouds veiled the moon, making it difficult to see more than ten feet ahead.
“You okay, Doc?” Lori asked, helping him to his feet and wiping ineffectually at the smears of mud on his black coat.
“Yeah. Just this path doesn’t run straight for more than twenty yards at a time.”
Nate Freeman looked back over his shoulder, face a pale blur ahead of them. “Want to get nearer than this to the ville ‘fore sunup. We’re close to Shersville here, and they might have patrols out, watching for me to head home.”
The clouds parted, and the moon broke through, bath-ing the region in a bright silver glow. Doc looked around him, admiring the beauty of the forest, the rain glisten-ing off the boles of the endless ranks of trees.
“How far?” he asked the young man.
“Sunup or the ville?”
“The dawn’s early light.”
“Two hours.”
“The ville?”
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“Three. If we don’t all keep falling over our feet like clumsy old stupes.”
“You’ll watch your mouth or…” Lori threatened crossly. But Doc patted her arm.
“No, my dear heart. Nathan is right. I must take more care.”
“Should have fetched the fast blasters.” The girl sighed.
“Safer in the wag,” Freeman argued. “You go through your plan to try and get in the ville then that mini-Uzi and the gray rifle’d have you in the moat ‘fore you could say, ‘Blessed Ryan spare us.’ Know what I mean?”