Chapter 2

As the Duke had predicted, they rode into the keep that night. The last five miles had taken six hours since they rode by moonlight, and the horses stumbled at every turn.

Eleanor sat in the cart battered and bruised, but working hard to look content. The bodies had begun to smell and she was feeling more than a little ill. But she rode with their dead. Dead important enough to be taken from the field of battle to be buried two days ride away. She would defile their grief as they defiled hers.

When the cart stopped in the stable yard inside the keep, she stood up and walked over the bodies to stand on the dirt in the moonlight. She watched the men rush about, stabling the horses, saw the Duke and his two attendants approach.

"Get the men to lay them out in the great hall," he said to Alain. "See if the women can find clean clothes for them in my room."

"Lop off their heads and post them on the battlements," she mimicked his manner. She wondered if her brother had been buried yet. Was there a man left to turn a shovel of dirt for him?

The Duke turned and shoved her to the ground. He nodded to James. "And have her thrown in the South tower. I never want to hear of her again." The bitterness in his voice told Eleanor her barb had hit its mark.

The tower turned out to be the remnant of an old keep that had been incorporated into the outer wall of a newer, Norman structure. The lowest floor was barely the height of a man and opened into the stables. Stored hay and grain rested on packed dirt, and dried onions hung from the low ceiling. A ladder and a small circular opening served as a rudimentry stair case.

The upper floor of the tower was also a single empty chamber. It had narrow slits for windows, and a small, charred hearth on one wall. When they took the ladder away from the entrance to her room, there was a fifteen-foot fall beneath her feet. Eleanor heard James post two soldiers in the room below hers, and order a watch around the clock.

It seemed she was to be a prisoner of more than her wedding vows.

The open windows of her room admitted all the cold night air, so sleep was impossible. Huddled against one wall, Eleanor had time to wonder why they hadn't thrown her in some nice warm dungeon. As dawn filled the sky, she decided that the Duke could not be seen abusing his wife just days after the wedding.

The fiction that she was his bride, and that the breach would be sealed with an heir to both estates, must be maintained until his men were strong enough to complete the occupation of her lands. Before next harvest he would write to Rome that their marriage was a farce. Guards would swear he never came to her in her tower, and she would have no child in her belly to belie his words.

She hated him more every minute.

At midday she woke to hear the ladder coming up through the hole. One of the guards appeared with a trencher of bread and meat and a flagon. She watched him set the food beside the hole, then descend back down to the second floor. The ladder was pulled away again.

She contemplated the trencher, and her stomach tightened. She reached into her shirt to pull out her blood-spattered shift, felt its stiffness, examined its red-brown stains.

Eric's blood, her blood, the blood of the dying she had tended. She had bathed in blood, her woolen gown had been stiff with it when she had taken it off. The maid had been sent to bring her a new one. The men had brought her brother to her when she was still only half dressed. No one had noticed.

She buried her face in the cloth. What a gruesome momento of her brother, the noblest man on earth. How had they come to this?

When the Duke's men came, just after nightfall, the trencher was still there. She sat in the darkness, watching the guard place the new trencher and take away the old one.

"She is starving herself," said Alain. "She did not eat yesterday, or this morning."

"Drinking?" Robert asked as he moved his queen across the board.

"Neither," said Alain.

"She will eat when she gets hungry," said James, taking the queen with his bishop.

Robert took the Bishop with a pawn.

"Three days without water-" said Alain.

"Four or five if you don't move much, and it is cold," said James.

"We will wait," said Robert.

She heard, with some interest, the rattle of the ladder being moved into place. Instead of the usual guard, she saw first Alain, then James, then the Duke coming through the floor.

She struggled into a sitting position. She would have stood if she could. One should meet one's enemies on one's feet.

"We are getting to be old friends," she said after a couple of attempts at speech. It was hard to talk after so long without water.

She turned her head toward Alain. "Will you have me now soldier? Put your babe in your master's place one day?' She spread her legs a little and laughed. Dressed in ragged leggings and a jerkin, crawling with lice, smelling to high heaven, she was worthy of her captors at last.

The Duke's face was hard. "We can force you to eat," he said.

She sighed. "I've been thinking about that for four days. I believe that it will just make your position worse. So much screaming and vomiting . . . ."

Alain turned to the Duke. "They will think you poisoned her."

She managed a smile. "I think so."

The Duke moved closer and crouched down. "What do you want?"

She found another smile. "You know," she said.

He stood, watched her for a while. Turned to James. "Get her a bath, fresh clothes, a bed and some bedding, and snatch Mary from the kitchens as a maid." He turned to Alain. "Get some men to lash the ladders so she won't break her neck going up and down. When it is all arranged, bring up some food and she will eat it."

This time the smile was easier to find. "Exactly so," she said softly.

"Why are you giving into this?" Alain asked as she closed her eyes.

"What makes you think she's going to eat now?" James interrupted.

"Because she has won. If she dies, we killed her. If she appears to be imprisoned then any misfortune that comes to her will be laid at my door."

The Duke shook his head and turned to climb back down the ladder. "Would that I could ship her to the convent today," he said as he disappeared.