Longing (31 page)

How many victims?

But before he heard them for the third time, Alex was on his feet and pacing his darkened bedroom, his fists tight at his sides, his teeth clamped together. He regretted his promise to Siân more than he regretted any promise he had ever made. He felt utterly helpless and impotent, confined to the castle, while an unknown number of his people were being chastised out there on the hills.

Why had he promised?

Why had she made him promise?

He wondered if she had stayed in her bed this time or if she had gone up the mountain again with her brother-in-law, as she had done the last time. Perhaps she was out there now, he thought, staring out the window into damp and gloomy darkness, while he was safe in here.

Damn you, Siân.
He pounded the edge of his fists against the windowsill.
Damn you.

He wondered if anyone ever became accustomed to the sound and could sleep through it or at least lie through it feeling nothing but indifference. His stomach churned sickeningly when finally the Scotch Cattle howled for a third time. Some poor fool's punishment was over. Iestyn Jones's, perhaps? Had he been first tonight? And how many more were there? Why were they being punished? For refusing to join the march on Newport?

Alex sighed with frustration. Tomorrow he would make it clear to Siân that his promise applied to this night only. He was not going to allow this to happen again. Even if it meant bringing in special constables or soldiers, he was going to put an end to such terrorism.

He stood at the window for longer than an hour, hardly aware of the fact that the air was cold, even with the window closed. But there was no further sound.

Only one victim?

The thought was somehow chilling. Only one? What was the crime that only one man out of the whole town was guilty of it?

He would find out tomorrow, he vowed. By God, he would find out.

She was not sleeping, of course, though she was lying on her uncle's bed upstairs. Neither was she undressed. She was wearing her oldest dress and shift. She was staring up into darkness. Her grandparents and Emrys were doing likewise, she guessed, though they had all gone to bed at the usual time and in the usual manner.

It was almost a relief, Siân thought, setting an uncontrollably shaking hand over her mouth, when the howling began. Almost a relief. It was beginning. Her hand, though icy cold, gradually stilled and she felt strangely calm. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She sat very still, her hands in her lap, and waited. She listened to her grandfather going downstairs and saw light around the edge of her door. They had lit the lamp.

She wished, in her strange state of calm as she waited, that they did not howl up in the hills to warn of their approach. It took time for them to come down. Perhaps not very long. Perhaps ten minutes, perhaps fifteen. It seemed more like ten or fifteen hours. She wished they had just come to the house and howled and thrown open the door and come for her.

The waiting was the cruel part. Her heart was beginning to feel as if it were lodged in both her throat and her ears.

One, two, three, she counted slowly, closing her eyes. One, two, three in, one, two, three out. She counted more slowly for the outward breaths and opened her mouth. In through her nose, out through her mouth. She gripped the edge of the bed tightly.

Would they go away if she promised never again to go back to Glanrhyd Castle? If she begged and wept and groveled? Would they? Was it too late?

One, two, three in through the nose. One, two, three out through the mouth.

And then she gripped harder and doubled up until her forehead touched her knees as the howling began again and the door downstairs crashed inward. She lost control of her breathing.

She would beg. She would beg and beg. She would promise
anything. Anything they asked. She would do anything. Anything they wanted.

One, two, three; one, two, three.

Somehow she got to her feet.

Grandad and Emrys both had their shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows, she saw as she came quietly down the stairs. Gran had the broom. There were four Scotch Cattle in the kitchen, all hooded. There were more beyond the open doorway. Grandad was swearing the air blue.

“I believe,” Siân said, her voice distinct and amazingly steady, “that you have come for me.”

“That we have, Siân Jones,” someone said in a gruff, hoarse whisper.

“I am ready,” she said, lifting her chin.

But her family had other ideas. Siân stood quietly and watched, feeling curiously detached, as first her grandfather and then Emrys were overwhelmed and tied to chairs with lengths of rope that must have been brought for the purpose. Gran's broom was snapped over someone's knee.

“You do not need to drag me,” Siân said, when hands finally clamped on her arms and two of the Scotch Cattle hurried her toward the door. “I will come with you.” They should have gagged Grandad, that curious detached part of her mind thought. No one hearing him now would have guessed that he was a God-fearing man. It would take Gran a while to free him and Emrys from their knots.

But they dragged her anyway, their strides longer than her own so that she had to run to keep up to them and even so stumbled frequently on the darkened slopes. There were no moon and stars tonight. It was not actually raining but the air was cold and damp and the grass and heather underfoot were soaked and slippery. They rushed her upward in silence. She did not count them. Her mind was not lucid enough. But they all seemed like giants to her and there were many of them.

Please, dear God,
she prayed.
Please, dear God.
A thought had
struck her—strangely, for the first time. She did not know of any other woman who had been the victim of Scotch Cattle. What if part of her punishment was to be raped? It had never struck her before—before being alone on the mountain with perhaps ten large, strong men, all with their identities quite firmly concealed.

Oh, please, dear God,
she prayed.
Please, dear God.

She did not know where they were. Her mind was incapable of registering direction or the normally familiar landmarks. She only knew that they moved steadily upward before stopping finally. Her arms were released and she found herself standing alone, staring down at the four stakes already driven into the ground and very visible even in the darkness.

She raised her chin though she did not lift her eyes.

“Siân Jones,” the same hoarse voice as had spoken in her grandfather's kitchen said, “you have been accused of informing against your own people to the owner of Cwmbran and putting them all in danger. You have failed to comply with the demand that you end your employment. You have therefore been sentenced to twenty lashes with the whip.”

Twenty.
Oh, dear God. Her knees almost buckled. But now that the moment had come, she had found some inner strength, some inner stubbornness. She stood very still, looking down at one of the stakes.

Someone stepped up behind her—she did not turn her head. He did not open the buttons of her dress. He tore it open so that she felt it going from neck to hips. Then with a loud rending sound her shift was torn in two. She felt cold, damp air and the clawing of panic against bare skin.

And then she was facedown on the cold, wet, hard ground, her arms and legs being forced in four different directions and tied to the stakes. Four men worked simultaneously—and silently—and then she felt the hands of one of them pull the torn edges of her dress and shift back and down over her shoulders so that she was fully exposed from shoulders to hips.

Her back prickled. She pressed the side of her face against the
ground and gripped the stakes with her hands. Whoever had tied her left wrist had tied too tightly, she thought irrelevantly. The blood could not flow freely. She would have pins and needles in her hand when she was released. There was something almost hysterically funny in the thought.

“She is a woman,” another voice whispered. “She cannot take twenty. Ten will be enough.”

“She is a woman who has betrayed us all,” the first voice said. “She is lucky not to have twenty-five.”

“Ten,” the other voice whispered.

“Twenty,” the first man said. “And let me see neither of you spare the whip.”

“Fifteen,” a third voice said aloud. “Split the difference and give her fifteen. Full force. The whips are damp. Fifteen with damp whips will feel as bad as twenty-five.”

“Fifteen, then,” the first man whispered grudgingly. “Be thankful that you have a champion here, Siân Jones.”

But Siân was beyond thought. Let them just begin, she thought. Let them give her thirty strokes if they would just begin.

And then she was aware of a whistling sound and a thud and almost belatedly, it seemed, felt a needle-sharp pain that was too intense to be absorbed for a moment. Only the shock of it told her that one of her lashes had been delivered. A shock that felt as if it had stopped her heart and had certainly stopped her breathing. A knowledge that she had been hurt before her brain could fully register pain.

And then the second. The pain screeching loudly at her.

“Stop a moment.”

She did not hear the voice. Her brain and her body grappled with a pain more intense than she had ever experienced or ever imagined—even during the past three days. And part of her waited for the third lash. For the unbearable one that would surely kill her.

“Open your mouth,” someone was whispering, someone who was kneeling on the grass beside her head.

Mindlessly she did as she was told and a thick wedge of some rag was shoved between her teeth.

“Bite down on this,” the voice said, slipping for a moment from its unidentifiable whispering.

But she neither saw him nor heard him. She only cursed inwardly at the delay.

Thirteen more lashes. She did not count. She did not think. She became raw pain. If she thought at all it was with amazement that one could endure such pain without passing out or without dying. And with surprise that it did not become dulled after the first few strokes but became more intense with each successive lash, as the whips whistled against welts already raw and bleeding.

She did not know it was over. She did not feel her wrists and ankles being cut free.

She did not hear the final howls and bellows and wails of the men who surrounded her spread-eagled body.

She was unaware that they had gone away.

She did not hear her grandfather's voice, Or Emrys's. Or Huw's or Iestyn's. She did not hear Iestyn crying or feel him stroking back her hair or kissing her cheek or telling her how proud he was of her.

And yet she did not lose consciousness.

Alexander,
she thought.

Alexander, Alexander. Where are you?

Why have you not come?

A
LEX
had not summoned Josiah Barnes. Doubtless Barnes would know. Everyone must know by now who the sole victim of the Scotch Cattle had been last night—except the Marquess of Craille. But he would not ask Barnes. He would find out from Siân.

She had known in advance and on the strength of her knowledge had extracted that promise from him not to leave the castle last night. He wondered if her fears had been realized. Perhaps not. Perhaps the victim had been someone else—perhaps her young brother-in-law had decided after all to toe the line.

He would invite her to luncheon, he thought. Or rather, he would command her to come to report on Verity's progress. She would hardly refuse a command. He was going to send Miss Haines up to the nursery with the invitation, but he decided to go himself. He would be able to see from her face if it had been her brother-in-law.

The nursery was very quiet. As he opened the door, he half expected to see the room empty. Perhaps they had gone for a morning walk since the weather was decent for the first time in several days. It would be wet underfoot in the hills, though.

But they were seated together at the table close to the windows, Verity bent over a sheet of paper, concentrating on some task she had been set, Siân sitting beside her, very straight-backed.

“Good morning,” he said. “Don't let me interrupt you. Carry on.”

Verity smiled sunnily at him. “I am doing penmanship, Papa,” she said. “Look. All my letters are the same size.”

“A miraculous improvement,” he said, coming up behind her and looking over her shoulder. “And very neat and nicely shaped letters, too. I hope Mrs. Jones is pleased with you.”

“Yes,” Siân said. “She is trying hard.”

He looked fully at her for the first time. There was not a vestige of color in her face, unless one counted the dark shadows beneath her eyes. Even her lips were bloodless. There were some cuts on her lower lip, as if she had bitten it. Her face was totally without expression. Although she looked at him when she spoke, he noticed that only her eyes moved. She held her head high and stiff.

She looked more like a marble statue than a woman.

God, had they killed the boy? Or hurt him badly? He wished more than ever that he had refused to promise what she had asked. He might have been able to stop it. He might have saved her this suffering.

“Carry on,” he said again, patting his daughter's shoulder.

She bent over her paper once more. He was rather surprised that Siân did not reprimand her on her posture. She usually did in that gentle, positive way she had that always made censure sound like praise and that always had the desired result. Today Verity was allowed to hunch over her work. He said nothing himself.

He strolled to the other side of the table so that he could watch Siân without being observed himself. He would tell her soon that she was to take luncheon with him. He would get the truth out of her then. And he would kiss color back into her face and relaxation back into her body. She was sitting perfectly still and silent. He had the impression that she was paying no attention at all to what Verity was doing, even though her eyes were directed at the paper.

At first he thought it was a thread poking up from the neckline of her dress. He even caught himself about to step forward to tuck it back under. But such an intimate gesture would not be at all the thing. He wondered idly why anyone would use red thread in order to sew a blue dress.

And then he frowned and did take a step forward so that he was standing just a few feet behind her chair. Yes, he had not been
mistaken. It was a scratch, a bloodline. Though more than the type of scratch one might give oneself carelessly with a pin. It was more like a—welt.

All his insides seemed to perform a complete and painful somersault suddenly. His knees almost buckled under him. He could feel the blood draining from his head and leaving it cold and clammy. The air in his nostrils felt icy. He clasped his hands very tightly at his back.

Several seconds passed before he felt sufficiently master of himself to move. He crossed the room to the bellpull and jerked on it. He waited beside it until Verity's elderly nurse came puffing into the room.

“Stay with Verity,” he told her. “Perhaps you could take her for a stroll in the garden. I have some important business to discuss with Mrs. Jones.”

“Yes, my lord,” the nurse said as Verity looked up in surprise and began to protest.

“You may take your doll with you,” he said, smiling at his daughter, “and bring her downstairs with you for luncheon with me later.”

Verity's protests stopped in the middle of a sentence. It was a rare treat to be able to take luncheon downstairs with her father. She bounded up from the table.

“Mrs. Jones too?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Mrs. Jones will not be joining us.” He looked at her. “Come with me, please, Mrs. Jones.”

She got slowly and stiffly to her feet while his stomach somersaulted again. He could not go to help her. He would not know where to touch her. Her face registered no expression at all.

“Along here,” he said, following her from the nursery and directing her toward some guest bedrooms farther along the corridor.

She made no protest, even when he opened the door into one of them and motioned her inside. She made no protest when he followed her inside and closed the door behind him. She stood still and straight-backed in the middle of the room, facing away from him.

“The Scotch Cattle were out again last night,” he said, leaning
back against the door, wondering if it was possible for a man to faint, half expecting that he was about to find out.

“Yes,” she said.

“They howled three times,” he said. “I believe that means that there was only one victim.”

“Yes.”

“Who?” he asked. “Who was it, Siân?”

There was a lengthy pause. “I don't know,” she said at last. “I have not heard.”

He came up behind her. She did not move though she must have felt him there. She did not turn her head to look back at him.

Perhaps he had been mistaken after all, he thought. Surely he must be mistaken. Surely to God. He contemplated the top button of her dress, wondering how he could undo it without touching her flesh. He lifted his hands to it. He could feel her inhaling slowly as he worked the first button free of its buttonhole and moved his hands down to the next and the next. It took him a long time, but finally her dress was open to below the waist. He took the corners of the neck and moved them back.

She was wearing a shift. Even so he could see that he had not been mistaken. He wondered again for a moment if he was going to faint. Or vomit. He moved her dress down her arms and hooked two fingers beneath the straps of her shift just in front of her shoulders. He lifted them as gently as he could and drew her shift down to her hips.

“How many?” he asked through lips that seemed too stiff to obey his will. He was looking at raw, inflamed welts crisscrossing all that was exposed of her back.

It took her a while to answer. “Fifteen,” she said.

Fifteen.
Iestyn Jones had been given ten. Alex remembered watching and counting the ten and thinking them endless. He remembered the state the boy had been in afterward.

“Why?” His voice had become a whisper.

“I don't know,” she said.

“Why, Siân?”

“They believe I was your informer,” she said. “They believe I told you about the meeting.”

“Bloody hell!” he said.

He could remember Owen Parry demanding to know who his informer had been and his own refusal to give the man's name—he did not even know the man's name. He could remember Parry telling him that he would find out.

Bloody, bloody hell!

“Come,” he said, and he crossed to the bed and drew back the covers. “Come and lie down.”

She was holding her dress and shift to her breasts at the front. Her mask had come off, he saw, looking at her. Her eyes were pain-drugged.

“Come, Siân,” he said. “I am afraid to touch you. I may hurt more than help.”

But he did take her hands when she came close to him and unclenched her fingers from the fabric of her dress so that it could fall to the floor. Her shift lodged about her hips. He was in no mood to be aroused by her near nakedness, or she to be embarrassed by it.

“Lie down,” he said.

He hovered over her helplessly while she got herself onto the bed facedown. She lay there eventually, clutching the pillow to her face, breathing loudly and raggedly. He knew that she was fighting pain.

He forced himself to look long and hard at the welts the whips had made on her back. All were red and swollen. Some had bled.

“How has this mess been treated?” he asked. “What did your grandmother do for you?”

“She bathed it with water,” she said.

“It needs ointments,” he said. “And you need something for pain. Whose idea was it that you come to work today?”

“Mine,” she said. “They might have misinterpreted my staying away.”

He did not question her meaning but told her he would be back and left the room. He should send Miss Haines to her, but this was something he must do himself. Good God, she had been whipped
because of him. She had been whipped! Fifteen times. By Scotch Cattle. Up on the mountain, spread-eagled and confined on the ground. Siân. His Siân. The feeling of cold dizziness in his head was becoming almost familiar.

He returned to the guest bedroom less than ten minutes later with a basin of tepid water and a soft flannel cloth, ointment that both Miss Haines and the cook swore was a miracle cure for minor bumps or major cuts, and a double dose of laudanum.

She was lying in the same position as before except that she had turned her head to the side, the better to breathe. She watched him come into the room and cross to the bed. Pain almost pulsed from her pale face and her dark, shadowed eyes.

“This first,” he said, indicating the laudanum. “You will have to raise your head to drink it, and that will be painful, but it will dull the pain after a few minutes and help you sleep. When was the last time you slept?”

“I don't know,” she said. “What is it?”

“Laudanum,” he said.

“I have never taken it.” She eyed it suspiciously.

“You will now,” he said firmly.

Her eyes were closed and she was breathing raggedly through her mouth by the time she had raised herself, drunk it down, and lowered herself to the bed again.

“You are unlike any other woman I have ever known,” he said, dipping the flannel into the water, squeezing it out, and feeling his knees turn weak as he eyed her back and knew that the time had come to touch it and cause her more pain. “Have you cried at all?”

“No,” she said.

“Did you scream?”

“No.”

She flinched when he touched the cloth to her back, and then lay still. He cleansed the welts and cooled them with the cloth and then spread the ointment liberally over her back, moving his fingers over her as lightly as he could. Even after the cooling water, her back felt as if it were on fire.

“Siân,” he said, “I could have prevented this. Why did you not tell me? Why did you extract that promise from me?”

“What better way would there have been to suggest that I really was guilty than appealing to you for help?” she asked.

“What was their warning four nights ago?” he asked.

“That I leave my job,” she said. “That I not come back here.”

“And yet,” he said, “you came.”

“Yes.”

“Knowing that you were going to get the whips last night.”

“Yes.”

“Did your grandfather and your uncle do nothing?” he asked.

“They were tied to chairs before I was taken away,” she said. “And cursing fit to be driven from chapel.”

“Did Parry do nothing?” he asked.

There was a pause. “No,” she said.

“How did you get down from the mountain?” He was moving a sheet gingerly up her body.

“Grandad and Uncle Emrys came for me,” she said. “And Huw and Iestyn.”

“Not Parry?”

Again the pause. “No,” she said.

He went down on his haunches beside the bed and looked into her face. Her eyes were closed. The laudanum should be taking effect soon, he thought. She would be able to sleep and forget her pain for a time—while he went out hunting. His mouth tightened into a grim line.

“Siân,” he said.

She opened her eyes and looked into his. She was still in pain, he could see.

“Did you know any of them?” he asked. “Did you recognize any of them?”

“No,” she said hastily. “They were wearing hoods. They were whispering.”

He watched her silently as she closed her eyes. Her eyelashes grew wet as he watched.

“They are usually men from other valleys,” she said. “I would not have recognized them even if they had not worn the hoods and even if they had spoken in their normal voices.”