Gytha waited tensely, but they said no more. Another chance, she thought, but fought against letting her hopes rise too high. John and Henry might have some good in them, but it did not mean they would be persuaded to help her. They could only think of saving their own skins. To escape a part in the crime they now saw in the making, they would simply flee, not exert themselves to stop the crime.
“Wake up, m’lady. Saitun Manor looms before us.”
“Aye, Henry.” Gytha blinked sleepily and sat up. “I am awake—more or less.”
“I think you have done little else but sleep throughout this journey,” grumbled John.
“It passes the time,” she murmured, looking towards Saitun Manor.
Their pace had slowed so that their approach would not appear threatening. Gytha was dismayed when they were hailed almost genially by a man on the outer walls. A small part of her had hoped that, somehow, Thayer could have gotten word to the men at the manor, a warning against Pickney. The speed at which they had traveled had dimmed that hope. No messenger could have outridden them. Her brief thought to call out an alarm was halted by Pickney riding up by the wagon’s side.
“Not a word, woman. Not one small word.” He reached over to tug her cloak over the confining rope about her middle.
She hastily swallowed the warning cry forming on her lips. All she could do was pray, long and hard, that her silence did not cause the deaths of the men guarding the manor. Fear for her child caused her to hold her tongue. She prayed the cost of saving that small life would not be a bloody one.
“Stand up now,” Pickney ordered once they were all inside the walls of the manor. “Stand up so that they may see that I hold you.”
The moment she obeyed him, revealing how she was tied, the sound of swords being drawn echoed through the bailey. Pickney drew his sword and held it on her. The icy tip of his weapon touched her throat. She hardly dared to swallow. Every man posted at the manor suddenly went still.
“I want every fighting and hale man in the bailey. Now! I want all weapons discarded,” Pickney continued to yell as, reluctantly, the men of Saitun Manor began to group together. “Make no brave attempt at rescue or I will kill your lady. And with her would go the heir of your master—The Red Devil.”
Not one man resisted. To Gytha’s great relief, Pickney did not kill the unarmed prisoners he had collected. Instead, he ordered them secured in the dungeons. It was not until he was assured that this had been accomplished that he finally took his sword away from her throat. Weak in the knees, she slowly collapsed onto the sacks in the wagon. She was then left to Henry’s and John’s care as Pickney saw to the further securing of the manor.
“It seems the key to a secure demesne is a woman,” drawled Henry as he edged the wagon towards the stables.
“I doubt it would work with all ladies,” murmured John, who then climbed off the wagon to see to putting it and the team away.
Gytha’s attention was drawn to the sounds of weeping women as Henry helped her out of the wagon. She saw Pickney’s men rounding up all the women and children within the manor’s walls. The way they were being herded into a group surrounded by sword-wielding men made Gytha very nervous. She shared the fear the women and children could not hide, unable to guess what Pickney was going to do with them.
Looking at a frowning Henry, she asked, “What is to happen to them?”
“Pickney means to lock them away as well. He wants none of them trying to help the men or you. Or”—he looked a little nervously towards the closed gates—“the Red Devil, who should be appearing soon. Come along.” Holding Gytha by the arm, Henry started towards the manor house. “You are to be put in the west tower room.”
Once inside the west tower room, Gytha sat down on the bed. She felt thoroughly worn out and utterly defeated. Soon Thayer would arrive, yet she had discovered no way to aid him or herself, no way to stop Pickney from using her as bait to draw Thayer into a trap. She could only pray that Thayer had some deviousness in him, for it began to look as if trickery or treachery was the only way Pickney would be defeated.
Moving to the window, she stared down into the bailey. Pickney’s men busily prepared themselves for Thayer’s arrival. She wondered why they worked so hard to prepare for a battle Pickney had no intention of fighting. He would use her to murder Thayer, then use her to keep Thayer’s men from seeking retribution.
For just a moment she wished she was not carrying Thayer’s child, resented the life rounding her belly. The baby complicated everything, held her back when she needed to act. Her every move had to be weighed because of the baby. Then she smoothed her hand over her stomach, silently apologizing to the child. Pickney, and he alone, was to blame for the tangle she was in.
Her dismal thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone unbarring the door. She turned to face Pickney when he and his two closest cohorts, Thomas and Bertrand, entered the room. The look of gloating on Pickney’s sly face infuriated her. She ached to beat it out of his features.
“Soon now, Lady Gytha,” Pickney’s tone of voice turned the title into a slur, “you can watch the Red Devil die.”
“Can I? Mayhap, sir, I will soon watch you die. Pray God it will be slowly and agonizingly, but I fear my husband is unable to stoop to the depths you do.”
With the back of his hand, he struck her across the face. Gytha barely smothered a cry of pain as she stumbled against the wall. The warm, salty taste of her own blood filled her mouth. Searching with her tongue, she discovered his blow had caused her to badly cut the inside of her cheek. Pushing aside her fury, she forced herself to remember Henry’s warnings. Pickney was filled with his own hate and fury—both directed at her. She did not want to prod those too much.
“I have won, but clearly you need more to make you accept my victory.” Pickney smiled, a cold flashing of his crooked, yellowed teeth. “You shall have it. Soon, very soon, I shall place the arrogant Red Devil’s head in your hands.”
Gytha had a sudden, uncomfortable urge to retch at the image his words conjured up, but she struggled against it. She stoutly refused to reveal any weakness to Pickney. “Someday, sir, you shall pay for these crimes you so gleefully commit.” Before she could say any more, a man stuck his head around the door.
“A force approaches the walls, sir,” the new man announced.
Pickney nodded. “Bertrand, when I signal, you are to hold her ladyship in the window so she may be seen clearly by her man.” He laughed softly and took one long look at Gytha before starting out of the room, Thomas and the other man with him. “It seems, m’lady, that your husband is most eager to die.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Pickney!”
