She huddled mute. He raised a foot as if to stamp her teeth. She braced herself against the wall, arms and knees drawn up for shield, and waited.
He lowered the foot. “A royal thing,” he mumbled “Is’t from the Prince of Lies—?” Shock made him lurch.
“The prince. Prince Rupert—” He whirled and roared: “Nafferton, awake! What butler art thou, snoring in the bed while hell walks loose? Ho, Nafferton, to me!” Echoes flew hollow around. Faintly came the barking of the aroused watchdogs.
Nightshirted, his butler fumbled from unlit corridor and kitchen into the scullery. “Go to the guards outside Prince Rupert’s room,” Shelgrave ordered. “Find out if he is there. Be quick, thou whelp!”
“Aye, sir.” The man’s jaws clattered. “Let me but light a candle at your lantern.’Tis deathly dark.”
“Make haste, or learn of death.” Shelgrave snatched a carving knife off a rack.
Gaze averted from Jennifer, Nafferton got a taper kindled and fled.
Shelgrave stared at the girl. She watched him test the knife edge on a thumb, over and over. A smile of sorts stretched his mouth. “What else might send thee forth at midnight, eh?” he said.’’Twas plain as filth that thou’d grown overfond of him, that royal devil. This day past, against mine own command, thou sought’st him out.”
“There was no secret in it, uncle, none.” Her tongue tried to moisten lips but her voice remained parched and uneven, scarcely to be heard. “How could there be? I knew that thou wouldst learn. I frankly told the guards how I had lost a keepsake from my mother I had shown him and thought might lie forgotten in his room. They let me in. We spoke in their full view, he helped me search around a little while, we found it not… whereon I said farewell.”
“And at the farther side of that apartment, when curtains of his bed or his broad back screened off the soldiers’ glance for just a heartbeat—did he then slip this ring between thy paps?” Shelgrave tapped it with the knife. A clear little chime went under the hysteria of dogs, the thick hush everywhere else in these shadows.
Jennifer climbed stiffly to her feet. She must lean on a wall to stay upright, and the breath whined in and out of her. But she lifted her head and answered with more steadiness than before.
“Thou’st guessed aright. A token of… his love. I meant to keep it hidden till the peace… but this night I could not forbear—”
“Well, traitress,” he interrupted savoringly, “befouler of the house that sheltered thee, what say we cut the nipples from those dugs lest thou shouldst nurse a devil-brat of his, or make thee noseless like so many whores?”
“No, no, God help me!” She choked off the scream, filled her lungs, squared shoulders; and the eyes which met his were now lynx-green. “I have rights in law,” she snapped. “Hale me before a jury if thou wilt. What else thou pratest of would outlaw thee.”
He cast the knife down so it rattled across the bricks. “I have a guardian’s right, at least, thou wanton, to strip thee bare and flog thy back and butt till such foresmack of hell has chastened thee.”
An approaching uproar swung their attention to the kitchen entrance. Out of it burst a halberdier. The cresset he had snatched from a bracket in the tower streamed red gleams across helmet, cuirass, and a face whose strictness had well-nigh dissolved in terror. Behind him came Nafferton, and other servants wakened by the noise. They dared not venture into the scullery; they crowded the arch-way instead. “Sir Malachi, your prisoner is gone!” the soldier bawled. Coldness descended upon Shelgrave. “Thou’rt sure?” he asked.
“We ransacked every inch at once when your word came to look inside for him.” The man groaned aloud.
“The rest still search—there is no trace to see—How might he have escaped? We heard no sound. It must be true he is a black magician.
What bat-wings bore him off?”
“Cease whimpering,” Shelgrave said. “No fiend has power over godliness.”
“But I… I am a sinner.”
“Thou’rt a man. Go bid thy squad make ready to pursue, likewise the day watch and my kennel-master.
We’ll ride within the hour.”
“Into the dark?”
“The dawn’s not far. And every moment’s priceless for picking up a scent ere it grow cold.” Shelgrave leaned toward Jennifer and whispered, “Thy stench at first… or Rupert’s if they’re mingled. We’ve articles aplenty ye’ve both used.” Louder: “Get busy, there! Light up the house, pack food, prepare as for the chasing of a wolf. Thou, Nafferton, send Prudence Whitcomb hither”—he paused briefly for thought—“and Sim the undergroom.” A babble and surging had started. He raised arms to quiet it, glowered, and said, each word a hammerblow: “Have care, ye folk. Ye’ve kept the secret well that he was here, the Devil’s dragon pet. I charge you now, on pains more dire, keep still that he is gone. It would encourage the iniquitous. Nay, wait till he is safely off in chains to London. Then make known what trust was ours.” He chopped a hand in signal. They dispersed. Though the sound of their runnings and callings grew greater, and light seeped in ever more bright as flames were brought to life, Shelgrave and Jennifer had a while alone. He said to her almost sadly: “Do not insult the wounds thou’st given me by claiming thou hadst naught to do with this.”
She answered in the same quiet tone. “Nay, it is true. I’d planned a ruse of war. By hiding of my ring and new-made rags, I hoped discovery would be belated and nowise linked to me. Did not Our Lord command that man and wife forsake all others?”
He started. “What went between you?”
“Less than I would wish,” she sighed.
“How didst thou aid him? Unforgivably?”
“A rope let fall from underneath my skirt, a note which said that I would soothe the dogs and guide him to the hiding woods. Naught else.”
“This ring gives thee the lie, I think. There’s more. But if thou wilt deny on Bible oath—”
She shook her head.
“Nay? Then I must presume a deeper thing than fancies of a brach in heat: like withcraft. This serpent ring could be the sign of Satan, and Rupert freed by wizardry, not wiles.” He brought fingers near her throat.
“If thou hast strayed that far tow’rd hell, recall what Scripture plainly bids:’Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.’ “
She closed eyes and fists, opened both, and said, “I swear to thee by Christ I am not such. Now I will speak no further.”
“Thou’lt change thy mind.” Shelgrave looked about. A man, ugly, unkempt, and smelling of manure, slouched in the outer doorway.
“You wanted me?” he asked.
“Aye, Sim,” Shelgrave replied. “I’ve seen thee curbing stubbornness in beasts.’Tis work that thou enjoyest.
Bide a bit.”
The wait was short until Prudence arrived. It might have been shorter had her proprieties not demanded a hasty gowning. She had overlooked her hair, which flew in gray frizzles. “What is’t, Sir Malachi?” she asked from the arch: then, spying Jennifer, hurried toward her, arms outstretched. “Oh, poor dear lamb! Where hast thou been? And bruises on thy cheeks—”
“Have done.” Shelgrave’s tone checked her. “She is no lamb, this swart she-goat that slipped the wolf we kept loose from his cage.”
Prudence clapped hands to mouth, pop-eyed. Sim tittered. Jennifer confronted them.
“I’m on my way for his recapturing,” Shelgrave said. “Meanwhile, ye two take her into your charge. Abuse her not, but keep her close confined in her own chamber, seeing no one else. She may have food but never, never sleep.”
“I can’t do that, though she be sold to hell,” Prudence protested.