“What is the meaning of this? I will see each and every one of you flogged!”
Elea raced up the stairs that led to the kitchen. The laird was a corpulent man, dressed in a crimson mantle with a fur collar. His face was red and on the top of his head was a shiny bald circle. He raised a thick hand with a large sapphire ring as if to strike the nearest young woman who was holding a torn piece of bread.
“Do not touch her!” Elea said, recognizing the Laird of Castle Argylly.
“And who are you to tell me what to do in my own castle?”
She stepped out of the shadow of the staircase and watched the laird’s red face turn white with surprise. “I am your princess.”
The blood left his face. He smelled of sweat and rotten strawberries. Rounding on Elea, he raised his hand again as if to strike her. She closed her eyes and prepared for the blow.
But it didn’t come.
Instead, she heard a loud thump. The laird was skewered through the heart with a dagger and was bleeding at her feet. She glanced up to see Gerard’s handsome, unshaven face. The room was silent, and it felt like everyone was holding their breath. Even her.
She touched his arm and brushed her lips against his scruffy cheek. “You have repaid your life debt, Captain Batard.”
The serfs cheered and Elea saw a hint of color in Gerard’s cheeks. Six villagers each grabbed, yanked, and pulled the bleeding and bloated body of Laird Argylly out of the kitchen.
The weeping woman clapped her hands. “I’ve waited my whole life to see that lard of a laird get his due!”
More people joined in clapping, cheering, and catcalling. She couldn’t help but smile herself. She’d taken her first castle without losing even one villager.
Elea scrambled on top of a barrel. “This is only the beginning. We will go from village to village, from castle to castle, and free our people and claim what is ours. Then we will march on to the capital city of Bhailmore and rid our country of Laird Lochdon and the pernicious aristocracy.”
The cheers that met her speech were louder than the sound of the earth’s shakes.
7
NORA
With a grim twist of her mouth, Nora pictured King Pierre of Kaul throwing a tantrum when he learned that he had captured the wrong princess. Or that she had allowed herself to be caught so that her cousin could return to claim the Urkan throne.
She had stood unmoving for long enough. She needed to escape before the silly king realized his mistake or before he put her in the dungeon. Although, the room they had locked her in on the second floor was as bare as a prison. Tiptoeing across the floor to the wardrobe, she carefully opened it so that the sound would not alarm her guards, only to find it completely empty. King Pierre was not a complete idiot. There was not a stitch of clothing in the room besides the thin chemise she already wore.
Weapons.
There was no poker near the fireplace. Nothing sharp in the room except a hairbrush. A smile crept to Nora’s lips at the thought of brandishing the hairbrush as a weapon. As amusing as that was, she knew it wasn’t practical against twelve men. Glancing around the dark room, the only thing she could think of was her stool. It would be unwieldy as a weapon, but she could remove its legs. As quietly as she could manage, she picked up the stool, turned it over, and with one quick jerk, snapped off a leg. It made a loud crunching sound.
The hairs on her arms stood up. She waited for accompanying sounds in the corridor. For her own door to open. Minutes passed. Neither the footmen nor the guards came in. She snapped off a second leg, this time prepared for the sound of cracking wood. Gently setting the now one-legged stool upside down on the floor, she tiptoed to the door of her room. Placing both wooden legs in one arm, she gently turned the handle on the door, trying to break the knob off.
It didn’t budge.
“Seven purgatories!”
Nora bit her lower lip. She could try to push down the door. It was possible. But it would make a great deal of noise, and she’d be spent before she even began fighting.
No. It wouldn’t work.
What would Elea have done?
Her cousin would have played the helpless princess and expected someone to come and save her. Maybe it was time for Nora to play the part of the damsel in distress. Still cradling the two wooden legs with one arm, she picked up the seat and threw it against the door with as much strength as she could muster.
“Help!” she called in a high, emotional voice. “Help me! They’re hurting me.”
The double doors burst open and two giant footmen rushed into the dark room. Before they could gain their bearings or adjust their eyes to the dim light, Nora, with a wooden leg in each hand, swung them like bats. The first blow hit the left footman square in the nose and blood began to pour out of it. The second blow hit the right footman on the ear. Nora kicked the back of the left footman’s knee and pushed him into the second footman. They both fell heavily to the ground. Dropping her wooden sticks, she grabbed the top man’s head by his hair and slammed it down into the other footman’s head. The crunch of their heads hitting together made her stomach churn.
They weren’t dead, but they should be out of the fight, she thought, as she retrieved her two wooden stool legs.