The back of Banan’s hand hit her face with a stinging slap, which brought her to her knees and made her sob with misery.
‘Have it your own way then, whore, but don’t cry and snivel. Pain makes you strong, it forges your character into steel. That is what my father told me when he beat me from an age when I was scarce old enough to reason. He said it would make me hard, and it has. That bastard beat me black and blue as I grew up, so often, that there was not an inch of my skin that was not marked, and all the while, my mother, the cold bitch, did nothing to stand in his way.’
‘Is that why you sent him to the executioner’s block?’
‘You dare to speak of that! Do you want me to kill you? My father was a traitor, the shame of my clan, as Lyall Buchanan is a traitor. Like my father, I will get him a traitor’s death.’
‘Why do you hate Lyall so much?’ she sobbed.
‘Because that cur looks down his nose at me, because he thinks he is better than me. We both fight and kill, and yet he tries to claim honour in it. Aye, he is the honourable hero, and I am the bastard, the monster everyone shrinks from.’
‘What people think of you is all your doing, not his. Lyall was never cruel. He has kindness in his soul, and you have no soul at all.’
‘Is that so?’ He drew out his knife and, for a moment, Giselle thought she was going to die.
‘Here is my knife,’ he said, placing it on the table before her. ‘When I sleep, take it up, slit my throat, for I know you long to.’
***
Hours later, after Banan had taken out his anger on her, Giselle lay, staring up at the ceiling, watching shadows creep across it, like the fingers of the dead reaching out for her. Often, she wished they would take her so that she could be done with this hell she was in.
The fire had died down to a tiny, orange glow. It would be pitch black soon. She could position herself and wait, and then she need not see the horror of it.
Giselle eased herself slowly out of bed. The stone floor was icy against the soles of her feet as she padded softly, like a cat, to the table. Feeling around, her fingertips soon found the blade. She took it up and crept back to the bed.
Looking down at Banan’s face, relaxed in sleep and shadowed in darkness, he seemed peaceful and almost handsome. It was a pleasing face when it was not driven by rage – gentle-looking, with the possibility of kindness and good humour upon it.
It seemed that this man wanted her to end him, to stop the struggle raging inside his head. Soon, his madness would consume him, and Banan would lose what little restraint he had. He would bang her head against the wall a little too hard, press her face into the mattress for a few minutes too long, squeeze her throat with too much violence.
Banan would kill her. It was just a matter of time.
It would be better to strike first, plunge the knife into his throat to silence him, and then withdraw it and keep cutting, as he gurgled out his life’s blood. Retribution would be swift, and King Robert would hang her as a murderess. It might just be worth it to end this monster, but it might not keep Lyall safe. If it weren’t for the suspicion that she might be harming more than herself by killing Banan, she would have opened his throat.
Instead, she turned and put the knife back and climbed back into bed.
‘You should have done it while you had the chance,’ Banan hissed into the darkness.
Giselle pulled the blanket up to her neck and lay still, her breath coming in fearful gulps. She squeezed her eyes tight shut.
‘It would have been a mercy for us both,’ he said, as he turned his back to her.