Chapter 20

 

Sir Walter’s world became a spiraling throng of scenes, voices, and sounds—flickering candlelight; faces, some familiar, some not, some twisted into demented shapes; horses in full armor clanging and thundering across a field; a thousand swords flung at him; his shrewish wife shouting insults; Cedric’s innocent smile when he was a lad; and wolves.

Black wolves.

Every time he crept closer to the bliss of slumber, his stomach revolted, and he leaned over the side of his mattress to cast his accounts into his chamber pot.

Thunder shook his four-poster bed, quivering sheets and pillows alike. Devil’s blood! He would call the castle physician into his study on the morrow and dismiss him at once! Then send out his steward to seek another more capable one.

Lightning flashed silver behind his eyelids, and he rubbed them, hoping to wipe away the torturing visions. The sound of scraping stone, the rustle of fabric, and the patter of rain outside his window added to the mad cacophony.

Rustle of fabric? Blinking, he pushed himself to sit, regretting the action immediately as it forced more food from his stomach, this time onto the floor. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and glanced over his chamber. Two shapes danced across his vision, fuzzy, billowing, like clouds driven before a winter wind.

He shook his head and swallowed, trying to focus on the closer of the two. Behind a veil, red hair streaked in gold, framed a female face, a familiar face, as the lady drifted through the chamber as if ’twas hers. Hers. Indeed, Sir Walter had moved into the solar, the chamber for the lord and lady, and made it his own.

“You!” He pointed a quivering finger at the woman.

The lady approached, a stinging smile curving her lips. “Aye, Sir Walter, ’tis I, Lady Grecia D’Clere.”

“But…” Sir Walter had trouble breathing. The lady grew small, then large again, ere she split into five images that spun like a child’s top. “You are not here. You died.”

“How now?” Her voice sparked with sarcasm. “’Tis my chamber is it not? Where else would I be but the place where you”— the woman suddenly dashed for him, her face shoved large against his—“murdered me!”

Thunder bellowed. Her scent of lavender filled his nose as her hot breath slapped his face. Sir Walter tried to scream, but terror strangled him. He pressed a hand on his stomach and watched in horror as the woman retreated, floating about his bed.

“Nay. I did not murder you!” he shouted. “In truth, I was nowhere near you when you died.”

“But you were the cause of it, withal, dear sir.” The voice was poison.

Lightning set the chamber ablaze in ghostly white.

The other woman drew near, swirling in a haze of gleaming candlelight. Hair the color of ivory dangled like jewels from her head. Seraphina? Sir Walter fell back on his pillow, breath careening in his chest. The maid had disappeared the day Lady Cristiana escaped. “You both are not here!”

“But we are, good sir.” Thunder shook the chamber as Seraphina whirled about the room in a dance of death.

Dread consumed Sir Walter. How did one argue with spirits? Especially since he could not gainsay their accusations.

Lady Grecia pounced on his bed to the right, while Seraphina stood like a statue of ice to his left. “We demand reparation,” they both said in unison.

“Forsooth! Is that what all this is about—my nightmares, my visions?” If only the chamber would stop spinning!

“A mere prelude to your eternity in hell,” came his answer from Lady Grecia.

“Hell! I cannot go to hell.” He struggled to sit, then leaned back against his headboard. “I am to be lord of Luxley!”

Lady Grecia shrugged and blew out a sigh. “You make too free, I think.”

“What can I do?” He shifted his gaze between them, making himself dizzier than ever. “What reparation can I possibly make now?”

Lady Grecia withdrew a document, pen, and ink from her tunic and held it out to him. “You may sign this.”

“Sign…” A foul smell emerged from his lips, followed by food clambering up his throat. He pressed a hand over his stomach and searched for a breath. He remembered now. Others had sought his signature, other visions, other apparitions. His suspicions rose. “What is this document?”

“Naught but your confession, Sir,” Seraphina said. “Sign it and you are well on your way to making amends.”

Closing his eyes, if only to stop the walls from gyrating, he hesitated, thinking…searching for some logic, some meaning to this lunacy.

“Sign it, or you will go to hell this night!”

“Nay, nay!” He shook off the fog in his head and gestured for the lady to come forward. “Anything to stop this madness.”

The lady spread the parchment before him and handed him the pen. He rubbed his eyes, squinted, held it up to the candle beside his bed. But the words skittered over the page like mice before a cat on the prowl.

Grabbing the pen, he dipped it in ink and held it over the page. His hand trembled. A drop of ink spilled onto his sheets. Lightning turned the parchment white.

A rap-rap pounded on his door.

“Sir Walter, is all well?” Though the words were hollow and surreal, it sounded like his guard. “Voices hail from within.”

The parchment fled his sight, the pen snatched away, and the two ladies withdrew into the shadows.

The word “Penance” echoed through the room ere Sir Walter bade his guard enter.

♥♥♥

Ronar wasn’t good at waiting. And never when his lady love was in danger. Still, he leaned against the stone door of the tunnel and did his best not to betray his own agitation whilst at the same time calm his friend’s. To no avail, he might add, for Damien continued to pace back and forth over the four-foot width of the tunnel.

Pushing from the wall, Ronar gripped Damien’s arm, halting him. “They are safe, my friend. And if they are not, we are but one push of this stone away from their rescue.”

Damien nodded, though the look in his eyes bespoke of anything but agreement.

A voice, a word came through the stones, dampened and hushed, as if ’twere spoken through a wall of liquid. Ronar had no doubt ’twas the word they’d dreaded to hear, Penance.

Which meant the ladies were in trouble.

With one nod at Damien, he gripped the pommel of his sword, and turned to push against the stones.

A thousand tiny legs skittered over his hands. The door didn’t move. Yet, it was moving.

“Don’t touch it!” Ronar all but shoved Damien behind him and grabbed the torch from its hook. Then holding it aloft, his worst nightmare appeared.

Spiders.

Hundreds of them, as big as his fist with thick, hairy legs, crawled over the stones and spread over the walls, ceiling, and floor of the tunnel.

He leapt back while Damien hacked at them with his blade. “Judas! From whence did these hail?”

“Penance!” came louder through the wall.

Ronar knew he must rush forward, knew he must push against the door and save the ladies, but despite his efforts, his feet moved in only one direction—backward. Horror buzzed in his mind, scrambling his thoughts, razored through his veins until they ached in pain. Horror like he’d never known. They cannot be real. He knew that. Yet…

“Ronar!” Gripping his arms so tight, pain spiraled down to his fingers, Damien shook him. “What ails you, man? They are mere bugs. We must away!”

Spiders. It had to be spiders. The one thing that frightened Ronar the most.

“The women need us! Come!” Damien jerked him forward.

The black horde was nearly upon them…a flood of biting, clawing, deadly ink that would soon swallow them alive.

“Spiders,” was all he could say.

“Aye, spiders.” Damien released him with a curse, then with sword drawn, charged into the nest. The creatures leapt on him, covering his body within seconds.

“Damien!” Ronar started toward him but then halted. This was not real. Like the solid wall that had transformed into snakes the last time they’d been here, this was but a trick of the enemy. An enemy that knew Ronar’s biggest fear.

But he needed Alexia. He hadn’t the faith to battle this on his own. He could fight a dozen warriors and put them to flight. But this? This attack came from beyond this world, beyond the reach of a sword, arrow, or dagger. He had to believe, but his faith was so new, so young.

Yet hadn’t he seen greater things than most ever would?

Damien fell to the ground, overwhelmed by the spiders.

Nay! Ronar’s anger surged, scattering his fear. “In the name of my Lord Jesus, the one and only Son of God, I command you to cease and give way!”

Instantly the spiders vanished. They did not scurry away, did not retreat, but simply disappeared as if they had never been there.

Faith and love swelled within his heart, but he had no time to consider what had happened nor worship the One who had saved them. Extending his hand to Damien, he helped the knight to his feet, ignored the look of shock on his face, and charged the stone door. He only hoped that his delay had not cost Alexia and Seraphina their lives.