Hysteria by Lily Blake

Author:Lily Blake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction / Girls & Women, Juvenile Fiction / Historical / Europe, Juvenile Fiction / Love & Romance
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2015-05-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

Duquesne sat on a milking stool near the entrance of the stable. A small oil lamp hung from the wall beside his face, illuminating his profile in the pitch black. Kenna, determined not to show how afraid she was, sat as far away from him as she could, cold, dirty straw beneath her and not even a chink of light coming in through the walls. The stable was so dark she couldn’t even tell how big it was, but it felt tiny, as though he were practically on top of her, even though there had to be at least ten feet between them. She could see nothing but his face, seemingly floating in midair.

“If only the Févriers had run away as I suggested, none of this need have happened,” the disembodied head spoke in a low, laconic tone. Whatever his plans, he was in no rush. “Tell me, did your king really send a woman alone back to my village?”

“Tell me, why were you trying to convince everyone that Alys is a witch?” Kenna countered.

“She is a witch,” he said. “And now she is dead.”

Kenna smiled in the darkness. “No, she’s quite well and living under the protection of the queen. What will happen when the other villagers find out she’s alive?”

“The villagers believe what I tell them to believe,” Duquesne said, shifting on his stool, his face vanishing into the darkness. “And if she somehow survived and managed to cast a spell on the queen, well, that’s just more evidence of her wicked powers.”

“I know you’re building a mill on the Févriers’ land.” Kenna played her cards quickly, hoping to surprise him into an admission of guilt. Even though she was his prisoner, to know the truth would be something. “I know you killed all those people.”

He clucked his tongue and laughed. “You know nothing,” he said, laughing quietly. “The boldness of some women today shocks me.”

“Why didn’t you build the mill on your own land?” she asked, pressing on with her questions. “Why did you need theirs?”

“As I said, you know nothing,” Duquesne replied. “You can’t build a mill without a river and I no longer have land by the river since the last king took it from me.”

Kenna closed her eyes. Even after his death, Henry was still causing problems. “Why would the king take your land?”

“To bestow on one of his cronies.” The old man’s voice was seething. “Given to a man who has never even been near this village as thanks for some task that Henry was not prepared to perform himself. There was compensation, of course, but what good is money without land?”

“You could have moved away,” Kenna said. “You could have bought land elsewhere.”

“And why should I?” he demanded, his voice rising now, filling the dark, unpleasant space with a tangible rage. “I was born and raised in Auxerre, just like my father and his father before him. And then Février refused to let me build on his land, not that it would have mattered to him.

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