Free Dragon Tree by Marsha Canham Page A

would not be
of much value.”
    “He has breath
left in him still. Enough for our purposes at any rate, even if we
have to spike him on a lance to make him sit straight.”
    With
thoughtful steps, Odo strode across the clearing and lowered
himself into a squat before the priest, his forearms resting on his
knees, his hands clasped together in front. He stared at the top of
the tonsured pate a moment, then turned his head slightly and spat
into the grass.
    “Truly, it
would have gone easier, Priest, if you had simply told us where she
was.”
    Friar
Guilford’s head came up slowly. His face was puffed and swollen
under the bruises that marked his cheeks and jaw. One eye was
closed to a slit. The other, despite his exhaustion, despite the
pain that wracked his body, was sharp and clear, as blue as a piece
of the sky.
    “I have told
you a hundred times,” he said through scabbed lips, “I do not know
where the Lady Elizabeth is and I cannot tell you what I do not
know.”
    “You expect me
to believe you, Priest? You expect me to simply say: ah, yes, good
fellow and so be on your way? This even though you can see for
yourself that God himself has judged you false.”
    The priest’s
gaze flickered down to his hand... a hand so swollen and inflamed
it was distorted beyond recognition as a human appendage. He had
endured Odo de Langois' questions; he had endured the beating, the
blows, even the clawed fingers that had nearly burst his testicles
like grapes. All of that he had endured with prayers on his lips
and faith in his God.
    The last test
had come with Odo’s amused insistence that he prove his ignorance
of the Lady Elizabeth’s whereabouts by undergoing an ordeal by
fire. A heavy iron bar was produced and heated red hot in the coals
of the campfire. As a test of purity, the accused person had to
hold the bar and walk three paces. The hand was then bandaged and
left for three days. If, when the bandages were removed the wound
was seen to be healing, then one’s innocence was proclaimed. If the
wound was not healed, if it was festering and growing worse, then
obviously God had abandoned him and declared him guilty of the
charge.
    Half the flesh
on Friar Guilford’s hand had come off with the filthy rags. The
scorching was to the bone and he knew, by the fevers and aches in
his body, that there was poison in his veins.
    Wearily, he
looked back up at Odo de Langois. “I expect you will believe only
what you wish to believe, and therein lies the cause for pity.”
    “You pity me,
do you Priest?”
    “You could
have had her love.”
    “Her love ? The love of a whore ? You countenance this as
being something I should have sought?”
    “She was no
man's whore. She was gentle and pure and spoke her marriage vows
with a sweetness that only needed someone to see it, to coax it
forth, to nurture it into loyalty and love. You could have done
this. You could have shown her kindness and compassion."
    “Kindness?
Compassion? For a whore who spread herself for every man who walked
the halls of Belmane Castle?”
    “You know this
as fact, do you?”
    “I saw it with
mine own eyes,” Odo snarled, spraying the friar's face with
spittle. “I caught her with her legs spread and her skirts shoved
above her waist.”
    “With your
brother Rolf? And did he tell you she begged him for it? Begged him
to drag her into the woods where her screams would not be heard,
then begged him to squeeze his hands around her throat until her
lungs were starved for air?”
    “Such a
crushing would have left bruises. There were none. And there were
five other men present who said she lay beneath him willingly. Are
you saying they all lied?”
    “They were
Rolf’s men,” the priest said simply. “They would say what he told
them to say.”
    Odo sucked in
a deep breath. “Maybe it is you who would say whatever she asked
you to say. Maybe you are more man than priest and would beg a
little compassion of your own? She has the face of an angel,