“You really should not have brought such dirt into the presence of a lady. He looked so starved, I wonder he did not really want the food. How can he see what I now have when all he thinks of is nourishment and the things crawling on his skin?”
Walter considered this. “You are right.” He turned to some men by the door. “Tell the guards to clean and feed him.” He was ecstatic. Arthur had said Judith would cry when she saw her husband in such a state, but she had smiled!
Only Joan knew what that smile cost her mistress.
Judith turned away from Walter, wanting to leave the room and especially to leave his presence. She held her head high as she walked through the retainers.
“The woman deserves what she gets!” Said some men close to her.
“True. No wife has a right to treat a husband like that.”
Each and every one of them despised her. And she too was beginning to hate herself. Judith walked slowly up the stairs to the fourth floor, wanting only privacy. At the top of the steps, an arm flew about her waist, and she was slammed against a man’s chest that felt like iron. A knife went to her throat, the sharp edge nearly piercing her delicate skin. Her hands flew to his forearm, but they had no effect.
Chapter Nineteen
“SAY ONE WORD, AND I’LL TAKE THAT VIPEROUS HEAD OF yours off your body,” said the deep voice, one she had never heard before. “Where is John Bassett?”
Judith could hardly speak but this was not a man to be disobeyed.
“Answer me!” he said as his arm tightened and the knife pressed harder against her throat.
“With my mother,” she whispered.
“Mother!” he spat into her ear. “May that woman curse the day she gave birth to such as you!”
Judith couldn’t see him, and she could hardly breathe from his arm cutting into her ribs and lungs. “Who are you?” she gasped.
“Yes, you should ask that. I am your enemy, and I would delight in ending your vile existence here if I didn’t need you. How is John guarded?”
“I…cannot breathe.”
He hesitated then loosened his grip, the knife easing away from her throat. “Answer me!”
“There are two men outside the door of the room he shares with my mother.”
“Which floor? Come, answer me,” he commanded as he tightened his hold once again. “Don’t think someone will come to save you.”
Suddenly it was all too much for Judith and she began to laugh. Quietly at first, but growing more hysterical with each word. “Save me? And pray, who would save me? My mother is held prisoner. My only guard is also held. My husband is kept in a sewer. A man I detest has the right to paw me before my husband while another whispers threats into my ear. Now I am attacked by a stranger in the dark of the hall!”
Her hands on his forearm pulled the knife closer to her throat. “I pray you, sir, whoever you are—finish what you have started. End my life, I beg you. For what use is it to me? Must I stand and watch my every friend and relative slaughtered before me? I do not wish to live to see that end.”
The man’s arm relaxed. Then he pulled away from her hands that tugged at the knife. He resheathed the blade, then grabbed her shoulders. Judith was not surprised to recognize the jongleur from the great hall.
“I want to hear more,” he said, his voice less harsh.
“Why?” she asked as she stared up into his deadly blue eyes. “Are you a spy set upon me by Walter or Arthur? I have said too much already.”
“Yes, you have,” he agreed bluntly. “If I were a spy, I would have a lot to report to my master.”
“Tell him then! Get it over!”
“I’m not a spy. I am Stephen, Gavin’s brother.”
Judith stared, her eyes wide. She knew it was true. That was why she had been drawn to him. There was something in Stephen’s manner, if not his looks, that reminded her of Gavin. She was not aware that tears were running down her cheeks. “Gavin said you would come. He said I had made a mess of everything, but that you would set it all to right again.”
Stephen blinked at her. “When did you see him that he said this?”
“On the second night here. I went to him in the pit.”