Free A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson Page B

Shelgrave’s breath puffed white. The clatter of his shoe-soles stopped when he did, but got answered by the creak of the door to outside. Shadows swung monstrous as he raised his lantern.
    Jennifer came through. Seeing him, she caught one tattered breath and swayed backward.
    “Hold, slut!” he belled. “Stand where thou art or be run down.”
    She could not completely obey. She crumpled. Legs sprawled across the floor showed slim through rents in a stained and dripping skirt. Stiff-elbowed on hands, head fallen between hunched shoulders, locks tumbled around cheeks, she let dry sobs quake through her.
    Shelgrave loomed above. “I see why God kept me awake this night,” he said deep in his throat, “that from my towertop I might espy thee come slinking o’er the bridge tow’rd this back entrance thou must have left unlatched—how many hours?” Violently: “Speak, harlot!”
    Still she fought for strength and air. He set lantern on counter. Stooping through the glooms, he seized a fistful of hair and yanked her head back upward. His other palm cracked her cheeks, right, left, right, left. Her neck rocked beneath the blows.
    “What foul swineherd hast thou sought,” he panted, “to wallow with him in what mucky sty? Ungrateful Jezebel, thou’lt get no peace till I have squeezed the pus of truth from thee.”
    “I did no wrong,” she got out, gasp by gasp through the punishment. “I … swear to God—”
    He released her and straightened, spraddle-legged, knuckles on hips. The tall hat cast a mask across his face, through which glistened eyeballs. “What, then?”
    “I too tossed sleepless,” coughed from her, “thought a walk might help … unthinking wandered far, and … lost my way—”
    “A maid alone, out after dark? Go to!”
    She lifted her arms. “I pray thee, uncle, by the bonds between us—”
    Light flashed off the third finger of her left hand. Shelgrave pounced on that wrist. He gripped it abundantly hard to draw a wail of pain. For a minute he stared, before he snatched it off. She nursed the hurt against her mouth. The finger was red where he had skinned it in his haste. Her eyes upon him were those of a trapped doe.
    “Who gave thee this?” he whispered at last. Over and over he turned it. The stone sparkled like any costly gem. A yell: “I’ll have no further lies!”
    She huddled mute. He raised a foot as if to stamp her teeth. She braced herself against the wall, arms and knees drawn up for shield, and waited.
    He lowered the foot. “A royal thing,” he mumbled. “Is’t from the Prince of Lies—?” Shock made him lurch. “The prince. Prince Rupert—” He whirled and roared: “Nafferton, awake! What butler art thou, snoring in thy bed while hell walks loose? Ho, Nafferton, to me!” Echoes flew hollow around. Faintly came the barking of the aroused watchdogs.
    Nightshirted, his butler fumbled from unlit corridor and kitchen into the scullery. “Go to the guards outside Prince Rupert’s room,” Shelgrave ordered. “Find out if he is there. Be quick, thou whelp!”
    “Aye, sir.” The man’s jaws clattered. “Let me but light a candle at your lantern. ’Tis deathly dark.”
    “Make haste, or learn of death.” Shelgrave snatched a carving knife off a rack.
    Gaze averted from Jennifer, Nafferton got a taper kindled and fled.
    Shelgrave stared at the girl. She watched him test the knife edge on a thumb, over and over. A smile of sorts stretched his mouth. “What else might send thee forth at midnight, eh?” he said. “’Twas plain as filth that thou’d grown overfond of him, that royal devil. This day past, against mine own command, thou sought’st him out.”
    “There was no secret in it, uncle, none.” Her tongue tried to moisten lips but her voice remained parched and uneven, scarcely to be heard. “How could there be? I knew that thou wouldst learn. I frankly told the guards how I had lost a keepsake from my mother I had shown him and thought might