Cruel as the Grave by Sharon K Penman

Author:Sharon K Penman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Historical mystery
ISBN: 9781781857052
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2013-09-15T14:00:00+00:00

XI

April 1193

Windsor Castle

Justin awoke to total recall, pain, and utter blackness. For a shattering moment, he feared he’d been blinded by the blow. It was almost with relief that he realized he was being held in one of the castle’s dungeons, as dark as the bottom of a well. His head was throbbing and when he moved, he had to fight back a wave of queasiness. This was the second time in two months that he’d suffered a head injury and by now he was all too familiar with the symptoms. He tried to find out if he was bleeding, but discovered instead that his right wrist was manacled to a ring welded into the floor. Testing its strength merely set his head to spinning. Pillowing it awkwardly upon his free arm, he lay very still, waiting for the dizziness to pass, and eventually he slept.

When he awakened again, the pain had begun to recede and his thoughts were no longer clouded. That was a dubious blessing, though, for he was now able to focus upon his plight with unsparing clarity. The solitude was soon fraying his nerves and he found it particularly troubling to have no sense of time’s passing. He had no way of knowing how long it had been since Durand swung that candlestick. Hours? A day? It was disorienting and somehow made his isolation all the more complete. It was as if the world had gone on without him. Would his disappearance stir up even a ripple at the royal court, on Gracechurch Street? Would there be any to mourn him, to remember?

His self-pity was fleeting, submerged in a rising tide of rage. He was not going to die alone and forgotten down here in the dark. He owed Durand a blood debt and he’d not go to his grave with it unpaid. That he swore grimly upon the surety of his soul.

His embittered musings were interrupted by a sudden scraping noise, shockingly loud in the muffled silence of the cell. He struggled to sit up as a trapdoor was opened overhead and a ladder lowered into the gloom. A man was soon clambering down, a sack dangling from his belt, a lantern swinging precariously each time he switched holds upon the rungs. Even that feeble light seemed unnaturally bright to Justin, who had to avert his eyes.

“Here,” the man said brusquely, shaking out the contents of the sack onto the floor at Justin’s feet: a loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese and a battered wineskin. “I was told to feed you... although it seems a shame to waste good food on a man who’s soon to die.”

Justin ignored the uncharitable aside. The guard’s grumbling only echoed what he already knew; spies were hanged. “Tell Lord John that Justin de Quincy must talk with him. Say it’s urgent and in his interest to hear me out.”

“I’ll do that straightaway,” the man vowed, and then laughed derisively. “Why should my lord John spare time for the likes of you?” he sneered and began his clumsy ascent back up the ladder.

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