| |
Early the next morning, the clatter and clunk at his door stirred Amoro from an uneasy sleep. Someone slid a tray into his cell and slammed the panel shut. He reached over and dragged the tray toward him. Rations so meagre, not even a rat could survive for long on this fare. This time, he restrained himself from eating the entire amount at once. After a small sip of water, Amoro broke off a tiny crust of bread. The remainder he left on the tray for later. To avoid the temptation to indulge in it sooner, he slid it to the opposite corner of his cell. As he chewed, he occupied his time planning escape.
At dusk, the same lout reappeared to collect his tray and bucket and left. Again, the man refused to answer Amoro’s questions or demands.
Secretly, Amoro delighted in the man’s blackened eye and cheek.
Two entire days spent in these dreadful conditions. Night fell again.
It began to rain. Chilled air seeped in through the barred window.
Amoro wrapped himself in one of the smelly cloths on the mound upon which he lay. He writhed about to search for some comfort and settled in for what he knew would be a long, intolerable night.
The rattle of keys outside his door drew his attention. The latch lifted and the door creaked open. Amoro squinted against a lantern’s bright light that flooded his tiny space.
Ernesto stepped into the cell. The door slammed shut behind him.
After he set the lantern on the floor, he straightened and looked down at Amoro. “So this is the great Scarlet Dragon. Look at you.”
Amoro gazed back with disdain, his anger at what he had endured over the past few days well harnessed. “Your accommodations leave much to be desired, Boccanera. Say what you’ve come to say then release me from this vile hole.”
“I see that these two days have done little to curb your foolish pride.”
“Where is the Contessa?” Amoro demanded. “And my men?”
“They are nearby, in my care.”
Amoro rose to his feet. “Your care. You call this care? I’m warning you, they had better be unharmed.”
Ernesto’s back stiffened. “It is not your place to make demands.”
“I want to see them.”
“You forget yourself. Here, it is I who is in control, not you.”
Amoro inhaled and swallowed his ire. “How did I get here?”
“I felled you from your horse.”
“Ah, yes, with a mace. I recall agreeing to fight with sword and lance.
There was no mention of a mace.”
“Do you dare call my honour to question?”
“You are what you are. Call yourself whatever you wish.”
Lightning swift, Ernesto kicked Amoro hard in the face and catapulted him against the stone wall.
Amoro’s head swam as he looked up at Ernesto. Amoro met his enemy’s gaze. A deadly determination calmed him. A resolve to survive this situation and savour victory over his archenemy spread through him. “You think you have won, but rest assured that you have not. The day will come when you will regret your actions.”
Ernesto looked around the cell and back at him, his look haughty, his hard mouth dented humorously. “You are in no position to make threats. You forget that I hold the key to your freedom.”
Amoro decided to try a different tactic. “It is said that you are near impoverishment. I can restore your fortunes, but in return, you must relinquish all claims on the Contessa.”
Ernesto looked at him, his face flushed, his gaze hostile. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “My marriage to Morena will bring me more wealth than even you can provide.”
“Release the woman. She means nothing to you.”
Ernesto’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Yes, but she means something to you, and for that reason alone, I shall keep her. Too bad I didn’t kill you that day I found you and Morena in that quaint secluded little garden.”
“I suspected those arrows belonged to you.” Amoro clenched his fists. “Let her go. It will go much easier for you if you do.”
“What can you do? You are no better off than a caged animal. Do you think that I’m afraid of your idle threats? I have your men in my custody and I have the Contessa. You, on the other hand, have nothing.”
“I’m a man who always gets his way. It would be far simpler if you just gave in, Ernesto.”
“I weary of this discourse between us. It is futile. In two days, the Contessa and I will wed. Then, in front of witnesses, I shall bed her. Of course, I’ll have to devise a clever way to stain the bed sheets of blood. I tested her wares already and discovered she is no better than a whore, already well introduced to the art of bedding. She has taken the seed of another man. For that transgression alone, she shall pay.”
For a second, Amoro stood totally still. He seethed with mounting rage. “Keep your lecherous hands off her.”
Ernesto laughed wickedly. He pressed his left hand onto the crook of his right arm and lifted his fisted right hand in one smooth action. An obscene gesture. “She is no better than a slut and is undeserving of such loyalty.” Ernesto turned to leave.
Amoro shot across the cell. He clamped a hand on Ernesto’s shoulder and yanked him around. His fist connected with a strident thud. He knocked Ernesto across the room.
Ernesto scrambled to his feet. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
He glared at Amoro, his mouth reined in tight. He slipped his hand inside the pocket of his mantle and withdrew something in his clenched fist. “Here, this is for you. A little keepsake from your lady love to remind you to never again to take what is not yours.” Ernesto threw it at Amoro. “Every time you look at it, think of her and how her lips will encircle my cockstand before I spill my seed into her mouth.”
Amoro launched himself, but Ernesto reacted quickly. He escaped through the door and locked it behind him. Amoro pounded the door.
“Coward! I shall see you pay for this, even if it takes my very life.”
The only response was the sound of Ernesto’s boots against the cold stone floor of the corridor as he lumbered away.
Amoro turned away from the door and looked down. A glint of gold caught his eye. He bent to retrieve it. In the palm of his hand rested Morena’s bloodstone pendant.
***
AMORO WATCHED THE FIRST rays of dawn stretch across the sky. Rage kept him awake. He paced the length of the tiny cell the entire night.
Never had he wanted to kill someone as badly as he wanted to kill Ernesto. The thought of that man’s demonic hands upon Morena filled him with a crazed jealousy the likes of which he never before experienced. For almost the hundredth time that night, Amoro stopped to look out at the world beyond his prison. Dim sunlight caressed the fine layer of dew on the undisturbed courtyard. He searched for the means to escape this nightmare, but the stones and cobbles of the walls and grounds refused to yield an answer.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor and stopped outside his door. Two guardsmen emerged from the shadows, lances brandished. Amoro’s nerves tightened as they came to stand at either side of him. “Come with us,” the larger of the two men announced.
“Where?” Amoro asked.
“It is not for you to question,” the smaller of the two men mumbled as he thrust the butt of his lance into Amoro’s back.
Amoro stumbled but managed to regain his balance. They led him out of his cell where four more guardsmen waited. Surrounded, the men pushed him down the dank corridor and through a small door where a walkway descended farther into the bowels of the castle.
At the bottom, Amoro found himself in a dank cavernous room with a malodorous cesspool at its centre. Human waste and putrid remnants of food flowed into it from two drains in the wall, one of which came from the garderobe. The pool flowed out to a sluice gate in the wall that fed into the castle’s moat. A small carved door lay buried in a niche in the wall at the far end of the room.
Two long beams of wood, the length of two tall men, hung from a post at the side of the cesspool and ran parallel to each other. Someone fastened a chair carved with devils to an axle between the beams. A sgabello di tortura. A dunking stool. Amoro tensed and tried to turn around. The guards held him taught between them, his struggles to free himself futile.
A rush of furious energy pumped through him as they dragged him to the chair. Amoro fought against them with the strength of a mad man.
The might with which he battled forced the three to the ground. One of the men held down his legs. The other kicked him hard in the ribs. The crush of pain and the crack of bone stole his breath. A fist slammed hard into his face, and then another. Blow after blow landed upon him and sent searing pain into his head.
***
RELENTLESS PAIN THAT drummed in his head and torso drew him from oblivion. He attempted to move, but could not. He opened his eyes.
Someone had strapped his arms and legs to the chair that hung over the cesspool. His memory jolted back. The reality of his situation sent a panicked bolt of trepidation through his veins.
The guardsmen who dragged him here stood beside the cesspool talking and laughing. Every so often, one would cast a wary glance at him then turn away, satisfied with their handiwork.
The sound of the door opening at the top of the room drew his attention. Like a lion with captured prey, Ernesto grasped Morena’s arm and pulled her down the walkway behind him. Bruises marred her swollen face, yet she bore a look of defiance. It broke Amoro’s heart to see her in the clutches of this beast of a man.
The moment Morena saw Amoro, she cried out his name and tried to run forward.
“Shut your mouth.” Ernesto yanked her back and slapped her hard in the face. Morena pursed her lips, regained her stance, and shot a look of cold hatred at Ernesto.
Intense rage ripped through Amoro. “You will pay for that one day. Let the woman go.” He clenched and unclenched his fists. The movement caused the chair to swing.
“Save your breath, Dragone. It is a commodity you will soon come to cherish.”
Ernesto called out for a chair. One of the guardsmen dragged one over from against the wall. With brute force, he flung Morena into it.
An overpowering sensation tightened Amoro’s throat. His face flushed with humiliation over his failure to protect her from this vile trap. Amoro fought to keep a neutral expression and stirred in his chair.
A sense of trepidation infiltrated the brackish chamber. The knowledge he could do nothing increased his torment.
Amoro scrutinized his nemesis. Ernesto’s lips thinned with anger. His face glowered into a mask of hatred. His eyes blazed with contempt. He went down on one knee and reached out to caress Morena’s cheek.
When she turned away with disgust, he grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her head back. His mouth twisted with exasperation.
“Putana. For a whore you carry a high opinion of yourself.”
“I’ll see you rue the day for speaking to her like that.” Amoro spat the words contemptuously.
“No, you will be the one to pay for taking the maidenhead of my betrothed.” Ernesto grabbed Morena’s chin with his hand and forced her to look up at Amoro. “Look at your pathetic lover. Confess that you have committed adultery and lain with him.”
She thrust her head to escape his grasp and met his icy gaze straight on.
“Confess and apologize.” Ernesto’s voice simmered with unchecked fury.
Morena swallowed hard, lifted her chin, and met his accusatory eyes straight on.
Without warning, Ernesto slapped her hard. Morena fell from the chair.
Amoro bellowed and tried to free himself. All he managed was to set the chair swinging.
Ernesto kicked Morena. “Get up.” When she didn’t respond, he wound a hand in her hair, hauled her up, and thrust her back into the chair. “Tell your lover to forget you.”
Morena glared back at him. “No.”
With all his might, Ernesto raised his fist and slammed it hard onto the side of her head. No matter the pain she must have felt, Morena showed no reaction.
This enraged Ernesto even more. He slapped her. This time, he drew blood from her lower lip.
“Morena, no!” Amoro yelled out to her, “don’t provoke him.”
“Say it, Morena.” Ernesto grabbed her throat with his hands to choke her. “Say it before everyone here that you spread your legs for him. Confess and repent or he pays.”
She met the accusation in Ernesto’s eyes without a flinch and tightened her lips.
Ernesto nodded to one of the guards who stood beside the beams of wood. The guard pulled a bar that jutted out from the wall. Amoro plummeted into the dank water.
***
“STOP!” MORENA CRIED.
“Are you ready to confess and beg forgiveness?”
She glared up at Ernesto. “Yes, yes. Raise him.”
Ernesto hesitated, a sneer spread over his face.
“Raise him, I said.” Her voice vibrated with panic.
Ernesto nodded to the guard who pushed back the bar. Amoro sputtered forth from the filthy water.
“You better make your confession worth all the trouble you have caused me,” Ernesto threatened Morena.
Morena’s expression portrayed pure wretchedness. Her head held high, her body straight, she replied in a low, steady voice, “I confess that I slept with Amoro of Genoa.”
“Come, come, now. Slept with him? That could mean a number of things.” Ernesto turned his back on her, placed his hands on his hips, and looked over at Amoro and then the guards. “Be more specific. Tell us all what transpired between you.” He turned back to face Morena.
“Say it. I want to hear the words.”
“Don’t say anything, Morena.” Vile muck dripped down Amoro’s cheek and into his mouth. It caused him to sputter with disgust.
Morena straightened and an expression of satisfaction showed in her eyes. “I gave my body and my maidenhood to Amoro. I regret not one moment of it. Had I to do it over again, I would.”
Ernesto’s eyes flashed with victory then they narrowed and hardened. “Very good, you learn quickly, cara mia. Apologize to me and tell Amoro that it is forever finished between you and that you will wed me with an eager heart.”
Amoro watched Morena hesitate, caught off guard by Ernesto’s demand.
Ernesto pulled a document from his mantle. “Unless you agree to marry me and sign this decree that you relinquish Monterossa Castle to me, Amoro will die.”
Morena glanced at Amoro. She hesitated.
“Dunk him,” Ernesto commanded.
***
THIS TIME, AMORO MANAGED to draw a deeper breath before he landed in the water. He kept his mouth and eyes shut tight. He remained as still as possible to preserve energy and breath. Time passed. His lungs began to burn. The pressure to breathe became an evil force to battle. Ernesto kept him submerged longer than before. Amoro attempted to struggle.
Lack of air compressed and squeezed his lungs. His ears rang with pain.
The last thing he heard before he blacked out was Morena’s screams muffled by the muck that threatened to drown him