“I agree,” she told Steven woodenly.
“I knew you would,” he said with a self-satisfied smirk. He drew the vial of poison from his tunic and handed it to her. Eadyth noticed that he had bathed and shaved. He almost looked like his old self. And Eadyth knew that if he chose to wield his old charm he could probably still lure some trusting women into his seductive traps. Or fool the nobles of Edred’s Witan.
” ‘Tis best if you return to Ravenshire as soon as possible,” he advised. “Eirik has not yet returned with John, my informants tell me. I suggest you do not tell him you have been here with me. Say you were lost in the forest, or some such thing. You will think of something. Women are good at lying.”
And men, too. You deceitful wretch. “You must release Godric to come back with me.”
He shook his head emphatically. “He will stay ’til I have proof of Eirik’s death.”
Eadyth’s heart sank with dismay, “But I cannot leave the poor child here to be tortured.”
“He has not been tortured, nor will he be, unless you fail in your mission.”
“Why should I believe you?” she cried out impulsively.
A muscle twitched near Steven’s thinned lips, but he did not strike her, as Eadyth would have expected. “I was tor… treated badly when I was of the same age,” Steven revealed, to her surprise. “You may find this hard to believe, but I have no taste for inflicting the same… pain on another child. Yea, I know Eirik has told, you how I beat him as a child, but I knew even then that I got no joy from torturing children. An adult… now that is a different matter.”
Eadyth saw a searing pain in Steven’s bloodshot eyes as he momentarily forgot himself and stared off in space, remembering some events in his far distant past. What could have happened to him as a child to have twisted his mind so?
“You have an odd sense of morality, Steven. You do horrid, horrid things to people. And yet you claim you would not harm Godric just because—”
He shook his head sharply, as if to clear his distasteful past, and snapped, “Enough! I do not need to explain myself to you. Come. A farmer’s cart awaits below. You travel back to Ravenshire in high style, my lady.”
All of Eadyth’s bindings were put back on, including the blindfold and gag, and she was forced into what must be the bed of a wagon, then covered with straw. Before they left, Steven told her, “Three days, Eadyth. Or you will receive my ‘gift’ to you.”
Several hides away from Ravenshire, the farmer stopped his wagon and released her. He pointed her toward the road, refusing stonily to answer her questions, then turned and went in the opposite direction. Eadyth began the long walk home and entered the keep through the hidden tunnel. She barred it from the inside to preclude any further unannounced visits from Steven.
Luckily, Eirik and John had not yet returned from Wessex. She had time to compose herself and make her plans. And, although skeptical, a frantic Wilfrid and the Ravenshire staff accepted her explanation that she had become lost when searching in the forest for Godric.
That evening, Eadyth sought out Britta to aid her in her plan. The maid, having suffered personally at Steven’s hands, would understand Eadyth’s need to take such drastic action. Leastways, she hoped Britta would understand.
“Are you daft?” Britta exclaimed after hearing Eadyth’s story. “You want me to help you plan for your death, and John’s?”
“Not our real deaths, just our false deaths. You, more than any other, know he means what he says. He will behead Godric if I do not do as he orders.”
“And he orders that you kill the Lord of Ravenshire?”
“Yea, and then wed with him.”
Britta shivered with distaste at the prospect. “But there must be another way. If you discuss it with the master—”
“Nay, I cannot. Steven would know and he would enact his revenge on me by hurting Godric. Furthermore, Eirik would go after Steven with even more furor, and I fear for his life, as well.” Her last words were spoken in a bare whisper, and tears welled in her eyes.