“Mistress Battersby?” Fitzroy called to her.
Esme released Gwynnie and turned around on her knees.
Renard struck out hard. His fist connected with the side of her head.
“No!” Gwynnie screamed and reached out, grabbing Esme to stop her from falling to the ground. She cradled her in her lap, tears threatening as she noticed the lady’s eyes slide shut. “What have you done?” she shouted. “She did nothing to you. Nothing!”
Renard and Fitzroy ignored her.
“You have to wake up, Goodwife Battersby. You must,” she whispered, yet something strange was happening. Esme’s face was no longer in focus.
A tingling feeling spread down the left-hand side of Gwynnie’s body. She released Esme, slowly lowering her to the ground and planting her own hands in the dirt. She could no longer raise her head. It felt strangely heavy, and she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and go to sleep, but to sleep now would be madness.
“It will do its task,” Renard muttered. His voice sounded distant. “Something I saw used on the Continent in my youth. Soon enough, she will not be able to do anything.”
Gwynnie glared back over her shoulder, wishing to defy him.
She saw Fitzroy move to stand beside Esme Battersby, towering over her unconscious form.
The last thing she remembered was Fitzroy’s gaze, resolute and unflinching, then the world slipped into darkness.
CHAPTER 21
There was a bright light overhead. Gwynnie grimaced, screwing up her eyes tight. Was it morning already? Surely not. She could at least spend a few minutes longer in bed, but the bed was not as warm as she had expected. In fact, it was cold and damp, and not a bed at all, but soft ground. There were sods of earth beneath her fingers.
Gwynnie blinked, opening her eyes wide. She was outside, still in the tiltyard. She could see the staggered seating to her right. Angling her head to the left, she sought out the jousting rail. She remembered at once what had happened the night before, how Renard had tackled her in the bedchamber and dragged her out here, forcing her to kneel before Fitzroy.
Neither man was here now.
Gwynnie shivered in the cold and rolled over onto her front. She felt sick. The taste in her mouth brought up bile, the bitter aftertaste acrid.
Something soft brushed her arm. Gwynnie raised herself onto her knees, looking down to see there was another woman beside her on the ground.
The embroidered skirt of Esme Battersby’s russet gown was billowing in the wind, and that was what had brushed her arm. Esme’s eyes were closed.
“No!” Gwynnie scurried forward on her hands and knees, hardly caring that she was now covered in mud and shivering so much that her teeth were chattering. There was blood under Esme’s head, spreading across the ground. Gwynnie reached for her wrist, desperately trying to find a pulse. She tried again, reaching for Esme’s neck this time. Her skin was cold, but there it was, at last! There was a flutter beneath the skin. As soft as the beating of a butterfly’s wings, but undoubtedly present. “You are alive. Thank God.”
Gwynnie gently shook Esme’s shoulders. “You must wake up! Goodwife Battersby, please, you must wake up!” But it did no good; Esme’s eyes stayed closed.
There was a sound across the tiltyard. Gwynnie looked up. In the distance, she could hear chattering voices. It may have been early, but people were beginning to rouse in the palace, and it wouldn’t be long until someone walked past the entrance to the tiltyard. All at once, Gwynnie realised how the scene would look when she was found beside the unconscious Esme.
Glancing down, she saw there was not only mud on her hands, but blood too.
“They’ll do me for murder.” She closed her eyes, seeing herself on the gallows. She could practically feel the hangman’s noose tightening around her throat, squeezing the life out of her, as the crowds jeered. Maybe some would throw tomatoes, while religious men might pray for her soul to be saved. “Which is exactly what those two knavish bastards want.”
Her eyes shot open, and she stood up. With new determination, she tried to pull the unconscious woman up into a standing position, but Esme was taller than her, and larger in build, and Gwynnie fell back down to her knees again.
“Oof!” she gasped as she clutched her temple. Whatever Renard had forced her to drink the night before, it had left her unconscious for hours, and she still felt groggy.
She looked beyond the jousting rail toward the gate that led to the nearest lane. She couldn’t see anyone yet, but voices were calling to one another. The cooks had risen, for someone shouted for more wheat to be brought from the tithe barn.
“Come, Esme. You are not dying out here.” Gwynnie moved so that her back was to Esme and latched the woman’s arms over her shoulders. When Esme was practically strewn across her back, Gwynnie gritted her teeth, forced all her weight into the ground beneath her feet and stood straight.
The toes of Esme’s boots dragged along the ground behind her, but it would have to do. At least this way, she could move Esme. Struggling across the tiltyard, staggering under the weight, Gwynnie glanced back once.
The mud was disturbed and the bloody puddle where Esme’s head had lain was plain to see. She gulped at the sight and moved on, shuffling slowly toward the gate. It was imperative she wasn’t seen with Esme. She wasn’t going to the noose for any crime that Fitzroy was responsible for.
Peering through the gate, she was careful to keep her back to the wall.
Samuel walked by, carrying a sack of wheat over his shoulder. He yawned loudly, a great hand clutched over his mouth. Behind him was a boy in training to be a cook, struggling under the weight of another sack.
“Hurry!” Samuel called to him. “We need to get the bread in the oven.”
Gwynnie waited for Samuel and the boy to disappear through the doorway of the kitchens, vanishing from sight. Stepping back, Gwynnie rested both her weight and Esme’s against the wall.
She could take Esme back to her chamber, but what then? Neither she nor Emlyn knew any healing practices. She needed to find someone who could help.
“Oh, no.” Gwynnie sighed deeply, for she knew only one person inside the palace walls to whom she could turn for help. She couldn’t go to one of the physicians, for they were busy attending to the king and queen.
Checking around the corner to ensure the coast was clear, Gwynnie decided to avoid the courtyard entirely. She heaved Esme forward, nearly buckling under her weight, and dragged her across the tiltyard. Careful to keep to the edges of the yard, she masked their bodies as much as she possibly could in the shadows, close to the wall of the yard tower and the galleries. The time seemed to stretch out infernally. A walk that would normally have taken her two minutes at most, now took ten minutes at least. More than once did she halt, taking a breather and resting Esme against a nearby wall. Her eyes darted across the windows set in the walls of the galleries, wary of anyone watching her, but it was still early, and all the curtains were drawn.
“Nearly there, Esme,” she whispered, hoping that Esme could hear her. “Nearly there.”
Puffing out her cheeks, she continued. Avoiding the towers, she headed to the south wing, where the clerks and lawyers of the court had their offices. When she reached the door to the building, she heaved it forward, struggling to push it with her shoulder. The door scraped across the flagstones, and she halted, leaning against the frame to catch her breath, looking up and down the corridor in case anyone came.
The corridor was empty.
Heaving forward once more, Gwynnie staggered down the corridor. She bit her lip, her already bruised back throbbing with fresh pain.
