Page 101 of The Darkland

“Can you not plead with her to open the door?”

Micheline had no real choice in the matter. They simply couldn’t leave Mara in the room forever. Again, she signed.

“I can try.”

Lionel and Spencer stood back as Micheline went to the door, half-hacked up and wrought with twisted metal. After a moment’s hesitation, she knocked on it softly.

“Mara?” she called. “Mara, ’tis me, love. Please let me in.”

They could all hear the shriek behind the closed door. Suddenly, the door was rattling as the bolt was thrown on the opposite side. But the door was so warped that it wasn’t hanging correctly any longer so the best Mara could do was open it three or four inches. When she saw Micheline in the corridor, she shrieked again.

“Misha!” she cried. “You have come!”

Micheline smiled at her pale-faced sister. “Open the door, love.”

Mara jerked at the door until her hair flopped in her face. “I cannot,” she said, looking at the warped panel. “Those fools have ruined this door. I do not believe I can open it.”

Having heard the conversation from his post several feet away, Spencer moved towards the door.

“Let me try,” he said.

As Micheline stood back, Spencer threw his shoulder into the panel and shoved, but it wasn’t enough, so Lionel came forward and also threw his shoulder into it. When Mara saw Lionel, she screamed and ran from their field of vision.

“Stay away!” she cried.

“Mara?” Micheline called to her. “Please do not be frightened. Nothing is going to happen to you, I promise.”

Mara, having spent more than a day in the chamber with hardly any sleep or food, was at her wit’s end.

“You… you liar!” she screamed at her sister. “You wanted me to open the door so he would come in!”

Micheline quickly came to understand what her sister meant and she hastened to reassure her. “Nay, love, I promise that is not true,” she said. “I simply wanted to see you.”

Spencer and Lionel managed to get the door partially open and Mara shrieked again when she saw that it was wide enough for a man to slip through. In a panic, she threw herself into the slender lancet window.

“If you come any closer, I shall jump!”

Spencer was already in the room, coming to a halt when he saw Mara in the window. Lionel was a little slower to enter, struggling his big belly through the narrow opening, but he too came to a halt when he saw Mara in the window that was three stories above the hard-packed bailey. He threw out his hands.

“Nay, Mara,” he pleaded. “All will be will, I swear it. You must get out of the window.”

Mara inched out of the narrow ledge, gripping the frame of the window for leverage. “I will not get out of the window,” she cried. “I will not marry you, do you hear me? If you come any closer, I shall throw myself to the bailey below.”

Micheline was in the room now, her eyes wide with fear. She well remembered a situation like this a few weeks ago when Mara had threatened to jump and would have fallen to her death had Kirk not saved her silly neck. She knew Mara wasn’t serious but she was also reckless. She could easily slip and….

“Please,Mara,” she begged softly. “I have not seen you in over a week and there is much to tell. So much has happened. Edmund and Johanne are dead.”

Mara had much the same reaction that Lionel had; her eyes widened and her jaw went slack. “Dead?” she repeated. “What happened?”

“Now is not the time to discuss this,” Lionel interrupted. He was seriously concerned. “Lady Mara, please climb out of the window.”

Mara’s attention was back on Lionel, her expression reverting to the panicked frown. “Only if you promise I do not have to marry you.”

Lionel wasn’t surprised she was striking up a bargain. He knew she was an intelligent creature; she was trying to turn the situation to her advantage. But he knew he could never let her gain the upper hand.

“Would it be so terrible, lass?” he asked quietly. “Would it be so terrible that you would rather kill yourself that become a wealthy baroness?”

Mara’s bright eyes flickered. “It would not be terrible under different circumstances,” she said, calming somewhat. “But I would rather be the wife of a poor knight whom I love than the wife of a wealthy baron I do not love.”