The Devil of Nettlewood (The Anarchy Tales) by Louisa Trent Page B

crime, the wishy-washy monarch would cast her into the dungeon, a mortal blow unto itself. Most inmates expired before sentencing, usually during their first year of imprisonment. Mayhap there was a method to this kingly madness. Mayhap delay saved His Royal Highness on chopping blocks, axes, hanging ropes, and crowd control. Whole families turned out for these rousing events, and they expected a stately spectacle. Pomp and circumstance. Oceans of blood. A severed head plopped into a catch basin. Entertainment on such a savage scale was an expensive proposition.
    But whatever the monarch’s rationale, be it negligence or parsimony, living in the abject squalor of vermin-infested straw, with little by way of food and drink, and subject to nightly attacks by fellow inmates—especially the kind visited upon female inmates—soon took its toll on a prisoner. The whore would probably expire before her case was ever heard.
    Spur let his prisoner run, giving her a brief spate of freedom for what portended to be the very last time.
    Unless he took her punishment into his own hands.
    After revealing to him everything she knew, of course. Once she came clean, he would mete out a suitable penalty. A public whipping sprang to mind. The little tart would most likely enjoy something of that ilk. She had certainly enjoyed his prior corporal punishment of her. As a bonus, the entertainment would amuse him. Plus, there was naught quite like making an example of someone. And so too, sound public thrashings kept unruly peasants in line. His duty to the Crown thus observed, he would release his prisoner to whore another day.
    Why see her executed merely for spreading her knees?
    As far as he could see, the only difference between her and the ladies at court was a royal pedigree. And the exchange of coin. And even that was a gray area—titled sluts accepted gifts from their admirers all the time, some of those gifts monetary. At least this whore worked for a living, which was more than he could say for female nobility who fell into their wealth through family connection. The wench was a loose woman, not a murderess.
    No need to decide anything yet. Up ahead—and without asking his leave—his prisoner raced into the water, her leather tether floating behind her. From a near distance, he watched her splash, then scrub her bloodied flesh clean with sand scooped from the river bottom. When her pale flesh took on a rosy glow, she dunked her head, and her long brown hair fanned across the water’s surface. He could not seem to pull his gaze away from the sight. For some strange reason, she intrigued him.
    He sighed, enraptured. Here was a wench who understood men, who knew their base desires, their wants, their fantasies. Here was a wench willing to oblige those wishes only given name to in the dark of night.
    Here was a wench he must keep at a distance.
    The sun would soon go down. Then, darkness would cloak the woodlands in mourning. Owing to the bandits who obviously made this forest their home, Spur gave up on the notion of a hot meal at the campfire lest the light cast by the flame invite attack. Another raid like the last would send the wench into apoplexy.
    He would see her spared that. And why? Because she was only a mercenary’s silly cunt, not a cold-blooded murderess.
    A good night’s sleep would restore her former tranquility. With that in mind, he gestured for her to leave the river.
    A summons she ignored in her frenzy to cleanse away the blood of her first kills.
    He understood her plight, but going easy on her would not help her inner turmoil.
    When she continued to disregard his motions, he called, “Return to me or pay the penalty for your willful disobedience.”
    He might never have issued the order for all the attention she paid it.
    The same dazed state that had held her in sway at Lord Harold’s courtyard gripped her again now. Her gaze was unfocused, her every move fraught with tension. The same as then, he doubted she